


Captive Audience

by Ygern



Series: Secrets [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ygern/pseuds/Ygern
Summary: Someone is stalking Robbie Lewis. The case makes Lewis and Hathaway reassess what they take for granted and what they keep secret, even from each other.





	1. Chapter 1

“So they didn’t say what they wanted to speak to us for?” DI Lewis asked his sergeant.

“ _Solum certum nihil esse certi,_ ” said James.

“And what’s that when it’s at home?” said Lewis.

“ _The only certainty is that nothing is certain_. Pliny the Elder. Not to be confused with Pliny the Younger, of course.”

“Never met either of ’em,” said Lewis. “Don’t suppose you’d ever try a plain ‘No’, eh?” 

His sergeant’s mouth curved upwards and they grinned at each other.

Inspector Lewis had been noticing things. He wasn’t a copper for nothing, so he’d begun to see something subtle if ever-present right in front of his face. What he didn’t know was what to do about it. Wasn’t even sure how he felt about it. He took a surreptitious side-eyed glance at his sergeant who was focussed on the road ahead, arms straight on the wheel, slight crease of concentration between his eyes.

“Pretty out here, isn’t it?” Lewis observed.

“Lovely. Wouldn’t recommend living here though.”

“No? Confirmed city boy then, are you?”

Hathaway’s eyebrows rose at that and he shook his head slightly.

“Midsomer is the number one murder hotspot of the UK, sir. If I were to settle down in the countryside, it wouldn’t be here. I don’t know how the residents sleep at night. 'Cept they probably don’t, because they’re all too busy plotting their neighbour’s demise.”

Lewis chuckled wryly at this. “So you would settle in the countryside if the neighbours were peaceable?”

“Happy where I am, sir.”

His sergeant was impenetrable at the best of times, but Lewis had with practise become adept at discerning Hathaway’s little tells. The side of his mouth quirked up almost imperceptibly at the side letting Lewis know that he was entertained by this line of enquiry.

“Can’t quite see you in dungarees and a straw hat.”

The mouth twitched further.

“Heaven forfend,” Hathaway replied after a moment, no doubt calculated to show maximum offense. Then he shrugged and said, “I’d miss the bells of Oxford. And in any case, I’m not sure I could bear to be separated from you, sir.”

And there it was. This last bit had been delivered in a tone as light and dry as desert air, but Lewis felt a familiar stirring in his chest. It wasn’t the first time that Hathaway had engaged in mock flirtation with him. Their professional partnership had evolved over their years together and Lewis would have told anyone that they were friends – although it would be truer to say it was probably the closest friendship he’d ever had with anyone, let alone a colleague, as unlikely a pair as they were. But the flirting, something he’d ignored as mere banter for years, had recently become something that made him notice and wonder.

He and his previous partner, Morse, had been an Odd Couple too once upon a time when Lewis was young. But as fond as he’d become of the old man, he would never have described his erstwhile guv’nor as a close friend. Hathaway had a lot in common with Morse. They were both over-educated, over-intelligent and too antisocial to be ideal copper material. Good at detecting, bad at polishing the right egos to work their way up the ranks. Lewis’s greatest fear was that Hathaway would one day become the bitter and lonely man Morse had been, but there were differences that gave him hope. For one, the lad had a mischievous sense of humour that spilled out when he was with him or Laura Hobson, local pathologist and long-suffering friend of Lewis. When the two of them got going it was all Lewis could do to keep a composed face at a scene of crime, puns flying thick and fast as his partner and the good doctor tried to outdo each other with the silliest lines. Morse had often laughed at Lewis. Hathaway tried to make Lewis laugh. The other difference was James’s kindness, something that Morse had seemed to have gradually lost all ability to harbour towards his fellow man (his fellow woman though, had been another matter). Lewis himself had frequently been the beneficiary of Hathaway’s thoughtfulness, whether it be a welcome steaming cup of coffee on a wintry morning or the slightly less welcome dogged determination to ensure Lewis saw his dentist when he needed one.

Hathaway kept his humour close to his chest though, as if he didn’t trust many with it. This had sometimes made Lewis wonder about his past. Something had made this man guarded and aloof around most people. The more the realisation had grown, the more Lewis had begun to treasure Hathaway’s sudden smiles and strategically targeted banter. This brought him back to his original point: he’d begun to notice things. Hathaway typically only really smiled when he was with Laura and Lewis himself, usually the smile could be seen on evenings in the pub and, lamentably, occasionally over dead bodies when waiting around for SOCO had become tedious and Hobson and Hathaway were off on one of their verbal jousting sessions. Then there was the other smile; a tiny, private thing that would flash onto James’s face sometimes. For the longest time Lewis had paid it no special heed, although he’d noted that it seemed to convey fondness and trust. But there was nothing out of the ordinary with that. They were friends, after all. But that was until the night when Hathaway had bowed out of a pub session early, something about a concert he was performing at the following morning, and left Lewis to the tender mercies of Laura. Over too much wine and brandy she’d pointed out that there was something different about the other smile after all: it was only for Lewis. There’d been something of a dangerous glint in her eyes as she’d said it, and Lewis had found himself floundering half in denial and half in embarrassment; after all he and Laura had been circling around each other for years, but their mutual attraction and genuine bond from years of working together had confusingly culminated in series of awkward missteps before they had both retreated to the more comfortable position of platonic friendship.

He’d tried to shake Laura’s observations off afterwards, as he headed home from the pub. The lad was so much younger than him that it made the idea absurd. James could not be attracted to him. In any case, Lewis wasn’t attracted to men. Well, hadn’t been since he was a lad, and even then it had faded fast when his mother had told him he was mistaken and that boys only liked girls. He’d felt confused and ashamed, but he’d liked girls just as much and so the incident has passed out of memory soon after. In any case, it hadn’t mattered once he’d met Val. For most of his adult life he’d been a married man with a wife he’d loved, now he was a widower with grown up children and an empty house. Time, they say, heals all wounds. But the truth was, it hadn’t; not until Hathaway had been serendipitously deposited into his life and become his bagman, partner and friend. When Laura had made little jokes about his other half, he’d felt obliged to respond with sarcasm, but inside he’d felt a burst of happiness, of rightness. But that still didn’t mean that James thought of him as anything more than a friend. Blasted Hobson and her speculations.

Still, Laura’s words had stayed with him, and now Lewis wondered sometimes and watched from the corner of his eye. While at work, James was impressive, both physically and intellectually. A combination of his height, well-cut suits and professional manner commanded attention from colleagues and witnesses. His carefully considered questions and rigorous attention to detail made him a formidable interviewer; and his athletic prowess, courtesy of a “bit of rowing” for Cambridge meant that he could be relied on to pursue and quell anyone resisting arrest if needed. He’d also proved to be conscientious, hard-working and just as respectful of authority and red tape as Lewis - which was to say, only barely, and only where judged necessary. Lewis had chosen well when he’d agreed to take him on as his sergeant. Professionally they they were the perfect match. The real surprise was that they had fitted into each other’s lives as well. That wasn’t the whole picture though, strictly speaking. Hathaway had fitted himself into Lewis’s life. Lewis himself still knew precious little about his younger partner. So much of that life remained unmentioned, untold. And yet, for all his zealous guarding of his own past, Lewis would catch James flashing that smile at him - at work, as they walked the pavements of Oxford, as they interviewed people - and now, as they drove along a winding country road to Causton.

“What?” said Lewis.

“You’ve gone very silent, sir.”

“I was just thinking, sergeant.”

There was a little twitch at the corner of Hathaway’s mouth again, but there was no rapid-fire quip in return.

“Nothing? Really? I handed that one to you on a platter,” Lewis continued.

“I was too busy being impressed, sir,” James said in overawed tones, “I mean, we’re not even near a pub or anything.”

Lewis’s face cracked open in a broad grin and seconds later Hathaway joined him in a wide smile, flicking his eye sideways for a microsecond before concentrating fiercely again on the road ahead.

They pulled up in front of Causton CID and were quickly met by a man with serious eyes who introduced himself as DS Ben Jones.

“Inspector Barnaby was called away on an urgent matter, otherwise he would have been here to meet you,” he said by way of apology. Lewis waved it away.

“No matter. I’m sure you can fill us in.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Lewis wondered briefly whether the man ever cracked a smile, but he said nothing and motioned for DS Jones to continue.

“I know it’s unusual for Causton to refer any case to Thames Valley, but this whole case is odd and seeing as the victim is from Oxford we thought we should inform you of it. In case there’s anything that ever turns up connected to this man.”

“Very good of you,” said Lewis.

Jones opened a manilla folder, leafed through some pages and pulled out a photograph. 

“The deceased was found three weeks ago, one Patrick Smith of no fixed abode, age sixty-nine, found dead at an abandoned factory outside Badger’s Drift. Cause of death was hypothermia, or exposure. Also, there were traces of Flunitrazepam in his blood. That’s Rohypnol, which can cause drowsiness, confusion, amnesia and impaired motor skills.”

“Hypothermia in the spring?” said Lewis.

“Apparently all it takes is for the body’s temperature to drop from 98.6 to 95. This man had been chained to a floor in a half-ruined building, God knows how long - could have been days, weeks. Still gets cold enough at night, and the poor bumps had been stripped down to his underwear.”

“Crikey,” said Lewis.

“What’s the Oxford connection?” said Hathaway.

“He was apparently a regular, off and on, at the St Francis homeless shelter in Oxford for the past couple of years, specially in the cold months. Then he just disappeared.” DS Jones shrugged. “Rough sleepers are often vulnerable to violent attacks, but abduction and imprisonment is weird enough to stand out by itself. Add to that that there appears to be no motive at all, no gangs in the area, no drugs - nothing. SOCO says the scene showed signs of being cleaned up after, except for the body. We can’t link him to anything in the area. None of it makes any sense.”

“So you’re thinking…?” Lewis prompted.

“Not sure, sir. Could be someone preying on homeless individuals. Could have been a one-off. Either way, we thought we should let you know, just in case you get something similar.”

Lewis nodded. “Right, let’s see the SOC”.

The building was grim, damp and dark. There was a pillar in the middle of the concrete floor that the deceased had apparently been chained to, which still had part of a chain coiled around it, and Hathaway suppressed a shudder, partly from the cold and partly from horror. The place stank of human excrement and stagnant pools of water. Lewis found himself comparing the two sergeants in front of him: the dark, kindly-faced Welshman and his pale, lanky oddball who was staring with a frown at the chains swaying slightly in the wind blowing through the building. The frown creased more deeply and Hathaway started to pick at wires attached to the plaster.

“That’s the other thing,” said Jones, noticing his interest. “We’re not sure, but those markings would be consistent with AV equipment being attached to the pillar at some point. Recently too, judging from the scuff marks left.”

“So, what - they were filming the poor bastard while he was chained up here?” asked Lewis.

“Possibly, or watching remotely,” said Jones. “There’s nothing about this case that makes any sense to me.”

Hathaway’s face registered faint disgust for a second and then his eyes swept the room again before finally seeking out Lewis. Then he turned back to Jones.

“You said there was Rohypnol in his blood, and he’d been stripped to his underclothes. Had he been raped?”

“No. No sign of anything like that. Our pathologist speculated that the drug might have been used to facilitate the abduction or compliance.”

Hathaway nodded.

“Right,” said Lewis. “I think we’ve seen all we can. Thank you, sergeant.”

Jones acknowledged this with a quick nod. 

“I’ll get a copy of the file sent over.”

They shook hands and with that, the meeting was over.

They were both silent on the trip back to Oxford; sun sinking rapidly behind them, leaving the road ahead grey and shadowy. Hathaway looked a million miles away, still with a faint expression of repugnance on his face, mixed with deep concentration. Morse had been like that, Lewis reflected, brain sometimes unable to put aside the horror at the cruelty of man to his fellow man.

“Up for a pint?” Lewis said.

Hathaway returned to the present and smiled faintly.

“God, yes please.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Afternoon, gentlemen,” Laura hailed them as Lewis and Hathaway, kitted to the gills in scene suits, trooped into the room. James wrinkled his nose, grateful that SOCO had already opened up all the boarded-up windows and doors to ventilate the scene. The stench of death and urine hung in the air.

“Doctor Hobson,” Lewis returned. James offered her a smile.

“Male, sixties, by the looks of it, natural causes, although in this sort of case we call it “induced natural causes” given he’s been stripped to his underclothes and chained to the floor with only a sheet for protection against the overnight temperatures. Time of death, probably around three days ago.”

There was silence in the room for a minute.

“I surmise from your faces that he isn’t the first,” she added.

“No, he’s not. Seen this before,” Lewis replied.

“In Badger’s Drift,” James added.

Laura’s eyebrows raised at that. 

“Oxfordshire? Bunch of lunatics out there.”

“You’re not wrong,” said Lewis. “Although, the victim out there was from Oxford itself which is how we learned about it in the first place.”

“To pre-empt your next question, no, I can’t tell you anything else until I’ve been able to go over him on the slab.”

James nodded.

“Thank you, Doctor. Could you check for Flunitrazepam, please? It was present in the Badger’s Drift victim.”

Laura repressed a sigh and elected not to lecture him on the perils of telling her how to do her job. 

“Noted, sergeant.”

She and James locked eyes for a moment, and his shoulders sagged and he replied more gently “Sorry, I know. But it looks like the two cases are linked. I’ll get the notes from the first victim over to you immediately if you like, just in case there are more similarities.”

“That’s not how forensic science works, sergeant. It tells us what is there. Or not there. It’s up to you to connect the dots and make the connections.”

Hathaway looked contrite.

Laura relented and nudged his arm with her elbow, careful not to touch him with her gloves.

“I’ll order a full tox screen so that we’re sure.”

He smiled at her gratefully and she grinned back in return. Robbie was scanning the room and pointed to severed wires attached to the wall.

“Get SOCO to pay attention to this.”

“AV equipment?” said Hathaway.

Lewis shrugged.

“Possibly. Probably. Dunno.”

“Definite maybe, then,” Hathaway loped out of the room and disappeared off to corral SOCO.

Laura returned her gaze to Lewis.

“Just like Morse,” she said.

“Oh? How’s that?” said Lewis tersely.

“You can take that scowl off your face, Robbie. I’m not attacking your James. Some of you boys, Morse included, never get used to dead bodies, is all. It’s not a criticism or a flaw.”

Lewis raised his hands in a gesture of placation. Laura watched him with a slight smile and laughed silently to herself.

“What?” said Lewis.

“Nothing,” she replied. After a pause she continued, much to Lewis’s chagrin, “In any case, he’s nicer than Morse. Better looking too.”

“Oy, I’ll thank you for not objectifying my sergeant,” Lewis replied, equal parts mollified and touchy.

“Who’s objectifying what? Oh,” James was back and was trying to divine meaning from the new currents in the room.

“I might have been commenting on your finer qualities, James,” said Laura.

He flushed to his ears but smiled at her and bowed slightly. Lewis rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.

“If you two have quite finished, I think we’d better be getting down to that shelter, which one was it?”

“Saint Francis, sir” said Hathaway.

“Yeah, as good a place as any to start our enquiries.”

 

The following morning saw them standing in front of a whiteboard, staring gloomily at the photographs of both victims, the most recent being Harry, surname unknown, or as the assistant at the shelter had said, “Just Harry, never could get a second name out of him. Bit simple, poor man. Think he’d maybe slowly poisoned his brain with home-made poteen.” There were no fingerprints at either scene, other than the victims’; and other than chains and makeshift electric wiring there seemed to be little to link the two places. By the afternoon the forensic report had updated their files with a little more: an almost healed contusion on the back of the skull, abrasions around the ankle where the victim had been chained, traces of Flunitrazepam in the system, a liver riddled by cirrhosis, and death from complications arising from interaction with alcohol and the drug leading to severe respiratory depression was confirmed. So there were similarities. The differences were in location, this one having been in a ruined house long abandoned on the outskirts of Whitney. The only other item of note to be turned up by SOCO was a rectangle of white plastic with a small piece pressed out of it.

“It’s a SIM card,” said Hathaway, “or at least, the remaining part of the card surrounding the SIM. That might be how they were remote-viewing if there was a camera set up. Or it might not be related at all.”

Lewis shook his head and grimaced. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Serial killer targeting rough sleepers?”

Hathaway looked thoughtful. “Maybe. It doesn’t really fit the serial killer criteria though. At least, we’d need more to go on to be sure.”

“Go on,” said Lewis.

“Serial killers are usually looking for some sort of gratification; sexual or thrill-seeking. Sometimes it’s an outlet for anger. But neither victim appears to have been touched in any way after they were abducted and imprisoned. They died of hypothermia-related conditions. That’s - unusual for a serial killer.”

“So why were both of them rough sleepers?”

“Opportunism?”

“What’s the one thing that makes them vulnerable?”

“No-one reports it if they disappear. If anyone even notices they’ve disappeared.”

“Poor blighter,” Lewis heaved a sigh. “Run the photograph through the press, check the fingerprints, that sort of thing. See if we can get a better ID.”

James nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

The next call came on a Sunday morning, rudely waking Lewis from his slumbers. They’d been in the pub with Laura until late the night before and then the two men had repaired to Lewis’s place armed with late-night fish and chips. After eating, James had crashed on the bed in Lewis’s spare room and so was rubbing his eyes bemusedly when Lewis came down the passage to rouse him.

“Body near Thrupp Lake,” he announced and paused to look at the dishevelled man in the bed.

“There ought to be a law against Sunday morning murders,” James mumbled groggily.

“Pretty sure the Homicide Act covers Sunday mornings,” said Lewis trying not to stare at his sergeant, currently in only a thin t-shirt and boxers, hair sticking up endearingly in fluffy tufts all over his head that made him look younger than his actual years.

Lewis shuffled through to the kitchen, not even trying to suppress a yawn, filled a couple of glasses with water and poked around in the cupboards for some paracetamol.

“Here,” he set down a glass for James and handed him the box of painkillers.

“Thanks. Please tell me we have time for coffee?” said James.

“We have time for a quick stop at a coffee shop if you insist,” said Lewis. “Bags the bathroom first.”

Thrupp Lake was calm and glacial in the early morning air. In contrast to the serene beauty of the surroundings, the derelict shed they were heading to was an eyesore, long abandoned and riddled with rising damp and rust.

Laura, having arrived at roughly the same moment as they had, gave them both a penetrating gaze as they reached her.

“Did either of you get any sleep last night?”

James groaned melodramatically and answered, “Not nearly enough, thanks to this morning’s call.”

She gave him a knowing look.

“I see you saved time by opting to keep yesterday’s clothes on.”

James flushed and countered, “It was too late to go home. I mean I was in no state to drive.”

He saw the merriment in her eyes and was about to protest further when her expression changed.

“Your boss is here, boys” she said to them both.

They turned in unison to see Innocent striding across field in Wellington boots with a serious expression on her face.

“Gentlemen,” she greeted them.

“Ma’am,” said Lewis.

She handed over a plastic evidence bag with a piece of paper inside. “Does this mean anything to you?” she said.

Lewis took the bag and turned it over, and started in surprise. In block capitals a message had been penned:

DI ROBERT LEWIS 

YOU’RE NEXT 

Lewis frowned and handed it over to Hathaway who inhaled sharply and looked at Innocent.

“SOCO found this on the body and informed me straight away. Right now, no-one else has seen it, not even Doctor Hobson. Do you know what this means, Lewis? Any idea who wrote this?”

His bewildered expression answered her question, but he nevertheless shook his head and replied, “Not a clue. Not even slightly.”

“When you’re finished on scene here, this is your priority. I’ll leave you on the case for now until we have a clearer picture of what we are dealing with.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I expect you to keep me up to date on this one, Lewis. We are not taking any risks with your safety.”

He nodded, “Understood, ma’am.”

“Let’s take a look at the scene then.”

They headed into the shed together. Once again the smell of death and excrement hung in the air, slightly ameliorated by the air blowing through broken slats. Lewis’s heart sank when a familiar sight confronted him, a partially-clad body chained to a support beam.

Laura looked at them gravely. “Very similar to the last one, I’m afraid. Looks like heart-failure, with indications of hypothermia, light abrasions around the ankle, contusion on the back of the skull that almost certainly wasn’t a fatal blow. I’ll confirm for you later.”

“Last one?” said Innocent.

“Last week, Ma’am, there was a similar death near Whitney. Homeless person, no apparent motive, at least, none yet. Also, we think there was a related death, Causton CID advised us of it a few weeks back. Almost identical except for location.”

“So, what are we thinking? Any connection between you and the deceased?”

“None at all, Ma’am.”

“There’s a possibility that these were trial runs,” James spoke up suddenly. He gave Lewis a worried look. “The deaths may have even been accidental, or at least not intentional. Not that it made a difference to these men...” He trailed off looking uncomfortable.

“Look into past cases, someone who may have a grudge against you” said Innocent. “Anyone you put away who may have been released recently. You might find somewhere else to stay in the meantime. Have you got anyone you can go to?”

“Me,” James spoke up with more than usual emphasis. “Um, that is to say, you can stay at mine.”

“Lad, you don’t even have a spare bed,” said Lewis touched by his sergeant’s earnestness.

“You can have mine, the couch is fine for me. I’ve slept on it before.”

Innocent mentally rolled her eyes and decided to bring this cycle of demurrals to an end.

“Decent enough offer, Lewis. I’d take it if I were you. Who better than your sergeant to have your back?”

Hathaway shot him a triumphant nanosecond smile.

Lewis nodded. “Okay, offer accepted then, James.”

James gave him a gracious nod and then turned and returned his attention to Doctor Hobson.

They stopped by Lewis’s place briefly on the way to the office and Hathaway insisted on standing guard outside the door while Lewis went in and stuffed clothes and sundry grooming items into a bag. He resigned himself to a week minimum of Hathaway hovering like a guardian angel and then realised that he was uncharacteristically looking forward to this interruption to his routine. They went straight to Thames Valley CID afterwards and Hathaway buried himself in the computer, pulling file after file and cross-referencing the whereabouts of the convicted.

Somewhere late in the afternoon James spun around in his chair and disappeared down to Records, returning a half hour later with a folder he handed to Lewis. 

“What’s this then?,” said Lewis, noting his sergeant’s loosened tie and newly raked-through hair, as if he’d been frenetic in his search.

“Do you remember a case involving an Alexander Butler?”

Lewis looked at him blankly.

“1987. Arresting officer DS Lewis, interview by DI Morse. Served twenty-five years. Five charges of murder, convicted on three, just released last month, now aged 70.”

Lewis’s brow creased and he leafed through the file slowly.

“Barely remember this one. It was my early days with Morse then. We - er, didn’t hit it off at first.”

“No? Why not?”

“I don’t think he thought much of me. Didn’t think I would be of any use in his investigations or understand his way of doing things,” said Lewis.

“Really? I’m beginning to reform my opinion of the mythical Morse. What a Philistine,” said Hathaway, sounding genuinely offended.

Lewis raised his eyebrows but couldn’t help looking smug, preening slightly under Hathaway’s staunch loyalty.

A throat was cleared in the vicinity of their door and Innocent stuck her head around it. “I apologise for interrupting your mutual admiration society, but have we any progress?”

James hung his head and frowned at his shoes and Lewis handed the file he’d found to Innocent.

“This one is the only one we could find that’s got recent date of release for the convicted,” he shook his head, “but I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about this case. Going to have to re-read the notes to familiarise myself again.”

“Twenty-five years ago is a while, I suppose,” said Innocent. “Well, it’s a start. Find out where this Butler is now. Find out who his supervising officer is now that he’s on parole, permanent address, that sort of thing. We maybe shouldn’t send you to interview him. We’ll see what happens.”

“He must have an accomplice if he is responsible for this,” remarked Hathaway. “A man of seventy couldn’t have abducted three men and moved them bodily without help.”

“Right,” said Innocent. “You’ll have to follow that up too, but right now, focus on Butler. It’s going to be a proverbial needle in a haystack otherwise.”

Lewis busied himself with the contents of the folder while Hathaway made them supper that evening, bottles of ale and a half-eaten packet of crisps at his elbow. It gave him a strange feeling to see his own handwriting and Morse’s detailing events he could barely recall. Morse hadn’t wanted much of his input on the case, but had certainly been comfortable letting him fill out much of the paperwork. Butler, it seemed, had been a Chartered Accountant at a swanky firm with a solid career and a well-lined bank account, and had decided to express his displeasure at a select few of his clients who had incurred his wrath by disposing of them, one by one.

“Still barely remember it,” grumbled Lewis. “I sat in on the interview, but Morse didn’t want me saying a word. I’m surprised this Butler would even remember me.”

“Maybe he’s coming after you because he can’t come after Morse,” said Hathaway. “I mean, as you were his arresting officer, it would be easy enough for him to find your name.”

Lewis shrugged and accepted the fragrant, steaming bowl of stew James handed him.

“Ta. What’s this?”

“Lamb with red wine and rosemary.”

“Nice, been a while since I had this home-cooked and all.”

James gave him a cheeky grin and said, “I hope I can rely on this being remembered when you do my annual evaluation, sir.”

Lewis huffed at him and retorted, “Well, I’ll be remembering something, anyways,” and they continued eating in companionable silence.

“Was he always like that? Morse, I mean?” asked Hathaway.

“You mean, distrusting of me capabilities?”

Hathaway nodded.

“No,” Lewis paused and thought back. “He just needed a while to get over the indignity of working with a Geordie who’d never been near a university until he had to investigate the murderous citizens of Oxford.”

Hathaway smiled at him, and Lewis found himself returning it.

“In the end I suppose we grew quite fond of each other. I don’t know if he would have called us friends though, not really, not like you and me; but he grew on me, and we liked each other well enough.” He trailed off, suddenly wondering if this was an appropriate observation, or whether Hathaway would agree with him. However the lad’s smile widened and he took Lewis’s bowl.

“More?”

“No thanks, full.”

“Another beer?”

“Please.”

Lewis woke the following morning feeling like he’d slept like a baby. Hathaway’s bed was comfortable, lack of orthopedic mattress notwithstanding, and the combination of decent enough ale and lamb stew and James’s company had left him feeling peaceable and relaxed. Rumbling in the distance told him that Hathaway was up and making coffee. He ambled through to the kitchen and found the lad with his head in the fridge.

“Scrambled egg and toast?” James asked straightening up with a carton of eggs in one hand and a tub of butter in the other.

“Yes, please,” said Lewis. “Getting spoiled here. May not want to move out in the end.”

Any worry that this might not be a welcome comment was swiftly allayed by the broad grin on the face of James.

“Coffee’s ready if you want some,” he said.

The morning brought small progress.

“Butler’s supervising officer says that he’s gone missing. He filed a report but doubts that anyone has done anything about it given his age. Not a priority.”

Lewis swore under his breath and muttered angrily, “Great, so we’re looking for someone who’s disappeared who may or may not be connected to the murder of three men, based only on guesswork.”

“Have you remembered anything else about the case, about him?”

Lewis shook his head. 

“Not really. Nothing useful, at least. Just arrogance. Contemptuous. He only seemed to get serious when he realised his case would go to court and he’d likely spend a long time in jail. But there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary with that.”

He eyed Hathaway, who was frowning but nodded.

“Could this be revenge? For being sent to prison, I mean?”

Lewis shrugged, his eyebrows mimicking his shoulders.

“No idea. Gah, I wish I could remember more. But I’m not even sure there’s anything there to remember. He was just another murderer. Wasn’t even my first. If there was something going on inside his head I didn’t know about it.”

“It’s okay, sir,” James touched his arm gently, “I’m pretty sure most people we put away are resentful towards us. If we paid attention to that we couldn’t do our jobs.”

Lewis smiled at him gratefully.

***

“Fish pie tonight, sir?”

“Has anyone told you you’re a prince among men, Hathaway?”

“Not this week, I don’t think.”

They stopped off at a supermarket on the way home to get some potatoes. Hathaway was drumming a tattoo on the steering wheel, a sign that Lewis recognised as James in nicotine withdrawal.

“Do you want to have a fag while I go in and grab some spuds?” he said.

“Nope. You’re not going anywhere without me. Um. Sir,” Hathaway replied.

“Ah, give over, lad. It’s only Tesco.”

Hathaway breathed thoughtfully as they pulled to a halt in the parking lot.

“If you’re sure.”

“‘Course.”

Hathaway opened his door and slouched against the bonnet, pulling out his packet of cigarettes while Lewis dashed inside the door of the building. He threw his head back as he inhaled his first breath of nicotine since lunchtime. He was aware he was smiling slightly. Having Lewis stay with him was something that he was enjoying more than he cared to admit to himself, let alone anyone else. The indignancy he felt towards Lewis’s would-be tormentor aside, he relished the opportunity to spend more time than usual with Robbie. He’d long realised that he had feelings for Lewis, and while he accepted that nothing would come of it, having Robbie close, even for a few days allowed him to indulge a fantasy that he tried to keep hidden. As his cigarette burned to a stub he frowned, wondering why Lewis was taking so long. Then he jumped and cursed rather uncharacteristically, and muttered “Idiot, you should never have let him go alone.”

He jogged towards the doors of the supermarket and heard a groan from the darkness beside it. Instantly he altered course and saw Lewis slumped on the ground being dragged backwards by the shoulders.

“Hey!” he yelled sprinting furiously after him. A shadowy figure jumped back and disappeared down the service alley. Hathaway head the sound of a door slamming and a grey van roared off onto the main road. James dropped by Lewis’s side and touched his head hesitantly.

“Robbie?”

Lewis opened his eyes and peered at him blearily.

“James?”

“Oh thank God! Are you alright? Do you think you can you walk?”

He tried to help him to sit upright. Lewis hissed in pain and clutched at his head. James put his hand over Robbie’s gingerly and felt a warm wetness seeping over his fingers.

“He must have hit you,” he said, “Oh God, I’m so sorry Robbie. I should have gone with you.”

“None of that now, lad. I was the one who went off alone.”

“I think we’d better get you to hospital.”

“I’ve got a thick skull,” Robbie protested.

“You’re going to hospital,” said James. “You could have a concussion or internal bleeding, and if you think I would risk that after what’s just happened…” he trailed off. “Come along,” he whispered and put his arm under Robbie’s shoulders and hauled him to his feet. They staggered slowly to the car with James taking as much of Robbie’s weight as he could, then he helped him lower himself carefully into the passenger’s seat before he joined him the the driver’s seat and carefully pulled out of the car park. He dialled the station and asked for Innocent. Lewis closed his eyes dizzily and zoned out, missing much of the conversation apart from the occasional “Yes, Ma’am”. The only thing he was aware of was Hathaway holding his arm, anchoring him to the world, like a lifeline. After that the night seemed to disintegrate around him and he was only hazily aware of blurry lights and the smell of disinfectant and blobby figures rushing about him. Somewhere through all of it he could hear James’s voice, at times distant and then closer again. Eventually the pain in his head seemed to abate and Lewis could feel his eyelids refusing to stay open any longer. He thought he could hear Innocent’s voice for a while and then James again, and then he heard nothing.

When he woke he was immediately aware of Hathaway curled up awkwardly in a chair next to his bed. For a minute he let himself stare at the lad, who looked so serene in his sleep. The one thing that he remembered clearly from the night before was his hand wrapped tightly in James’s. It was strange, he reflected. The only thing he felt about it was comfort and belonging, there was no weirdness or embarrassment attached to the memory. He wondered who had initiated it. Had he instinctively reached for James, or had James reached for him? There was no denying anymore that he had begun to feel drawn to Hathaway in a way that went far beyond their professional partnership. Having James present had become something he needed to feel whole. The question remained, was he right about the attraction Hathaway seemed to harbour for him? He found it easy enough to admit this to himself in light of the past night’s events; and yet he felt as the older, more senior member of this partnership it would be unwise of him to initiate anything. Hell, it would be unwise of Hathaway to initiate anything. They were colleagues, and Hathaway deserved someone more suited to himself, not some aging copper who had been worn down by life.

Suddenly James’s eyes popped open and he breathed sharply when he saw Lewis’s eyes examining him.

“Oh, you’re awake. Sorry, I must have dozed off.”

“You’re alright, lad. A man’s entitled to a night’s sleep.”

A guilty expression came over James’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Robbie. I almost got you killed last night. I promised I would look after you and then I left you alone.”

“That’s not how I remember things, James. As I recall, I convinced you to let me go. If you’re going to insist on taking the blame you may as well let me share some of it. I should have been more careful too. In any case, you saved me. You were there when it it mattered.”

James looked unconvinced, but his expression did clear slightly.

“Innocent says that she’s putting you into a safe house for a few days,” he said glumly. He motioned towards the door. “We’ve got Uniform on the door and they’re not going to let you go anywhere else.”

Robbie sighed and sat up in the bed.

“I packed your bag for you while you were sleeping. Oh, and I added my Tablet, It’s got some books and music and stuff on it so you won’t get too bored.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, James.”

“I’ll let you get dressed then,” James said and stepped out of the room.

Within forty minutes Lewis was discharged and in the back of an unmarked vehicle being ferried to his new temporary accommodations. He looked back through the rear window and saw James staring sadly after him.


	4. Chapter 4

With Lewis out of action, Alan Peterson headed up the team investigating the case. James could only imagine his DI’s chagrin were Lewis to learn this little tidbit, which matched his own at being co-opted onto Action Man’s team. It annoyed him intensely to be relegated to a secondary role on an investigation he felt personally connected to, although on reflection he knew he wouldn’t have been allowed to remain on it at all if that were truly the case. James resigned himself to following up on whatever bits and pieces Peterson assigned to him and tried not to think of Lewis who was no doubt fit to be tied at being cut off from his work.

“How safely can we assume that failing to kidnap Lewis is a serious setback to Butler? What’s his next move likely to be?” said Innocent at the morning briefing.

“It could have derailed his entire operation,” said Peterson with a shrug, “although it’s impossible to say without knowing exactly what his endgame was in the first place.”

“It’s petty revenge,” said James. Then he seemed to remember himself. “Sir,” he added. “I mean, I’ve read the interviews conducted by Inspector Morse. There was a distinct change in tone once he realised that Lewis and Morse had put together an airtight case and that he was likely to be jailed for a long time. He was outraged, indignant.”

“How’s that different from anyone else who realises that they’re going to jail” asked Peterson.

“It’s different because he just tried to kidnap the man who arrested him,” said Hathaway sharply, “and he’s already killed three men just by keeping them imprisoned. He wants to get revenge by imprisoning Lewis and leaving him to die.”

“We don’t know that,” said Peterson.

“We don’t necessarily have to know that,” said Innocent. “We need to find Butler, and we need to locate the man helping him.”

“We’ve pulled the surveillance feed from the Tesco parking lot, however it’s dark and there isn’t much to go on,” added Gurdip. “We’re trying to clean up the footage of the attack to see if we can get an identifiable image, maybe even a number plate.”

“I’m following up on any friends Butler may have made while in prison,” Hathaway added, “especially any who may have been released around the same time as he was.”

Innocent nodded.

“I’m also looking into Butler’s assets to see if he has any property, what sort of money he’s got, that sort of thing. He certainly had money once. If he still has, that would go a long way towards getting the sort of help he needs to pull this stunt off.” James kept his head down, unwilling to acknowledge the frown on Peterson’s face. “Inspector Lewis had me start on that yesterday, before the attack,” he added to head off any complaints.

***

Somewhere across town, Lewis shut himself into the small bedroom assigned to him, frustration rising and irritability bubbling to the surface. He could take no more of the card games and the incessant radio favoured by the two plainclothes coppers, Tony and Dave, assigned to guard him and already bored by their duties. Lewis had always regarded himself as easy-going and able to rub along with anyone, and once upon a time he’d have been happy enough to while away the hours playing Rummy and making idle chit-chat about the cricket score. His reserves of patience had departed him somehow, and he found himself wishing for a quiet pint and Hathaway’s steady voice opining about Augustine or Social Strain Theory or whatnot. It was funny that, he mused. It was the sort of stuff that once would have had him praying for an escape, when Morse had held forth on some topic he thought his sergeant should know about. It was different with James though. The lad didn’t expect to be be appreciated or listened to, his enthusiasm for imparting his knowledge on a subject just bubbled out of him. Somewhere along the way Lewis’s mere tolerance of it had morphed into enjoyment, sometimes less for the actual subject matter and more for James’s company truth be told; but nevertheless, there it was. Thinking of James reminded him of the Tablet he’d mentioned and Lewis scrabbled through his bag and found the device complete with charger and headphones. He hadn’t used one before, but reckoning that it couldn’t be too different from navigating a smartphone Robbie switched it on, grinning at the paper sticky that declared that the password was !Kn4pp3rtsbusch, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found that it was indeed as intuitive as he’d hoped.

Feeling slightly like a bit of a snoop, he explored the directories of music and books, and then guiltily took a look inside the photo gallery, but it appeared that James was not much of a shutterbug and apart from a few pictures of scenery, the only snap he’d saved was an old photo of the pair of them at some nobby civic event they’d attended under duress two years ago. Curious that the lad had saved this one, the pair of them in smart suits, neither of them smiling at the camera and yet he could tell by their expressions that both of them had been enjoying themselves. He felt a wave of fondness overwhelm him and noted that his earlier irritation had faded into nothing. An old memory surfaced from long ago, Morse calling out for him after his house had been set on fire by an old nemesis of his own. His old boss hadn’t half managed to make enemies of people. It was in that moment that Lewis had become aware of Morse’s fragilities, how he’d come to rely on Lewis, his secret dependence revealed in his moment of shock. Had Robbie done the same thing to James? Was he just an aging man who’d come to lean heavily on his sergeant?

But then there were all those little moments with James over the years. _If you go, I go. We were trying to work out how I’d break up with you, sir. I’m not sure I could bear to be separated from you, sir. Who else would understand me?_ “What an interesting young man he is,” that professor of theology had once said to Lewis. Yet James had chosen to spend much of his free time kicking back with Lewis instead of pursuing the company of like-minded academics or other brilliant minds.

So now Robbie felt caught halfway between coming clean to James about how much he meant to him, and yielding to his self-doubt that insisted it would be a terrible idea for a hundred different reasons. He could well imagine the look on James’s face if it was something he did not want to hear, the instant of shock that would be carefully masked by polite blankness a second later leaving Lewis feeling like a stupid old man and destroying their partnership with a single sentence. And yet, here he was with James’s private life in his hands and the only person in these folders was himself. But it was safer to say nothing and just enjoy James’s company, so freely given. He fell asleep listening to music, recordings of James and his guitar soothing his mind into stillness.


	5. Chapter 5

James arrived at HMP Blackgrange South just as it was starting to sleet, a last gasp, he hoped, of the lingering fingers of winter that had overextended into spring. He waited patiently for the guards at the gate to verify his identity card and badge, and then rather less patiently for the double set of gates to be opened for him. By the time he’d made it to the main building, asked for the Governor’s office and had been redirected to the Custodial Manager’s office with the information rather snippily dispensed that the role of Governor had been done away with last April, with the further unspoken but heavily implied addendum that as a ranking member of Her Majesty’s Territorial Police Force he should have already known this; Hathaway was itching for a cigarette and feeling thoroughly uncharitable towards his fellow man, woman and officer. He was offered a coffee, which he accepted, and then instantly regretted when it turned out to be some variety of Nescafe that had evidently been allowed to oxidize to the point of smelling and tasting utterly offensive. Still, it was hot and he was cold. Once he’d added sugar sufficient in his estimation to mitigate the acrid flavour, he discovered that it tasted even worse. When he was told that the CM was ready for him he took the opportunity to accidentally forget the mug in the waiting room.

CM Rhodes wasn’t particularly keen on being interviewed by a sergeant, but he was bored and this visit at least provided a diversion from his usual duties.

“Nah, mate,” he said, “it was mostly before my time, only been here three years, promotion included, but I can’t say as I ever paid your Butler too much mind. He kept his head down. Nose clean. He was old, and the old fellas normally don’t cause too much bother. Fight’s all gone out of them. They know they can’t take no-one in a scuffle no more. I pulled his files for you though.”

“Thank you,” said Hathaway. “Is there anyone else who might remember him? It’s vital that we find out who he would have associated with.”

Rhodes considered this for a moment.

“Three bodies, you say?”

James nodded.

“Don’t seem like the work of a seventy-year-old.”

James remembered to rein his biting retort in just in time, and instead opted for: “Yes, we’ve considered that. That’s why we need to identify possible accomplices. We’ve reason to believe that Butler is masterminding the murders.”

“Might try the electronics workshop instructor then. Most of the boys do some sort of courses while they’re here. It’s supposed to help rehabilitate them and give them a skill when they leave. But really, they’ll do just about anything to relieve the boredom after a while. Most of the courses have been phased out nowadays, on the wisdom of the Minister of Justice, of course. But we still have the electronics workshop.”

The electronics instructor, Chris Harper, had several IQ points and years on Rhodes, if Hathaway was any judge, and had somehow still retained his passion for teaching and his compassion for his students in spite of ever-dwindling funds for his teaching resources.

“So we were wondering, of all the people released around that period, were any of these friendly with Butler?” said James. He pushed the list of the possible candidates he’d compiled earlier in front of Harper.

“That’s easy,” said Harper. “I remember him. Butler wasn’t your regular inmate, if you know what I mean. Came from money. Clever. Educated even.”

“Could you explain?” asked James.

Harper sucked on a vape-pen and exhaled, expelling billowing clouds of vapour.

“Sorry,” he said. “Trying to quit. Only once you manage to kick the fags you find you’re addicted to the vaping instead.”

James tried not to think about the automatic beckoning from his own packet of tobacco waiting in the glove compartment of his car and nodded understandingly.

“Less chance of the cancer, I s’pose. Only I’m asthmatic, so inhaling water vapour several times a day brings its own problems. Funny thing, the asthma attacks stopped all the years I smoked. Dries out the lungs, apparently. Hadn’t been off them six months and the asthma came back. Doc says lesser of two evils though.”

James thought longingly about his rollies and tried not to snap at the man.

“So, Butler?”

“Oh yeah, sorry. Well, lots of the lads in here grew up on the wrong side of the railway tracks. Got involved in crime because they didn’t have a good enough reason not to. Butler, you always got the impression he did what he did just because he wanted to. Anyway, Chris Johnson’s the man you should look at. He was my star pupil in Electronics. The two of them used to talk a lot. I’d put my money on him.”

The sleet had turned to warm rain when Hathaway got back to his car, and he decided to break his - well, Lewis’s - rule of no cigarettes in the car just this once. All the talk about quitting had rather depleted his reserves of self-control. On the way back to the station he also treated himself to a triple espresso and broke the rules again for another cigarette as compensation for forcing his taste buds to endure the horrors of Nescafe earlier. A perusal of Butler’s prison file noted that Butler had over the course of many years participated in a variety of courses including basic motor mechanics, writing poetry - James scoffed slightly at this, theatre production, introduction to criminology, art, electronics workshop, computer building and maintenance, and coding for beginners. It was a motley collection, however, even his jaundiced eye could see that any number of these courses could have provided Butler with the foundational basics for planning, abducting and observing men die from a remote location.

He got back to his office and immediately buried himself in the computer, pulling up the arrest file on Johnson. By evening he had ascertained that Johnson had been a trained emergency response medic until he’d been dismissed for stealing Class B and C drugs on the job. Apparently this had only reinforced Johnson’s resolve to go crooked, and he’d finally been busted during a full-scale robbery of a Boots pharmacy warehouse. James trundled out at six-ish for another cigarette and to purchase a rather squashed sad-looking cheese sandwich for his supper. Then he had another fag and headed back upstairs to his office armed with a fresh coffee to accompany the pitiful sarnie.

He wrote his report meticulously and then while taking small bites of his sandwich, made a list of things that needed to be followed up on; request access Butler and Johnson’s bank accounts to trace any payments between them; interview Johnson’s parole officer to trace his whereabouts; locate Butler’s lawyer or accountant or both to try to narrow down Butler’s assets and or location. He attached his notes of the day’s interviews and POI files and emailed them all to Peterson for his review. He might have to work under Peterson under protest, but no-one was going to be able to accuse him of not working diligently.

He realised that he’d been gnawing his thumbnail for some time if the mangled nail chewed down to the wick was anything to go by. He hoped Lewis was having a better evening than he was, then he sighed and reached for his coat.

He broke the rules again on his way home, smoking another cigarette and then a second. The dashboard told him it was five past eleven when he turned into his driveway and trudged up to his front door. He decided he’d earned a stiff whiskey or two, and was just trying to calculate how many he could get away with and not oversleep in the morning when he felt the back of his skull split open in a fiery burst. For a second he actually could see points of light blinking at him, and then he saw nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

James came to slowly, and for a few blessed seconds felt and thought nothing. Then he became aware of how much his head hurt and in an instant the memory of being hit on the head and the sharp sting on an injection needle flashed back to him. “Fuck!” he shouted and sat up, holding his head and staring wildly around him. He was in some sort of cell, on a pallet with a hard thin mattress and a blanket. With a sick lurch in his stomach he pulled up the blanket to find a metal cuff around his ankle and a chain leading from it to a bar attached to the centre of the room. He had been left in his t-shirt and boxers.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” he shouted, recognising with a nauseating jolt what had happened to him.

“Right, keep your head, Hathaway,” he muttered, “get your bearings, note the details, try to remember everything.”

A thorough examination of the room revealed a small old-fashioned toilet designed circa the 1970s behind a small privacy wall, a large pack of toilet paper (thank God), a small sink on which was laid a toothbrush, a bar of cheap soap, a cloth, a plastic container with a lid and a tin of meal replacement powder. The place stank of rat droppings and mildew, and there was a cold draft blowing through the bars in the window where the glass had been broken a long time ago. All in all, slightly better conditions than the last three poor victims of Butler, but it seemed that this was intended to be a long-term prison. Come to think of it, this room was a cell. James racked his memory. This had to be a disused, abandoned prison, or perhaps a defunct police station. If only he could see outside, he could find out more. Unfortunately, the window was too small to be able to see much out of it, and the door was solid and didn’t budge when he banged on it. He threw himself against it to test its strength and instantly cried out in pain, regretting the move when the impact made him realise he was already injured. Lifting his shirt he could see purpling bruises along his ribs. His abductor had evidently put the boot in, no doubt in revenge for thwarting the earlier attempt on Lewis.

Robbie. At least Robbie had been spared this. The thought of his partner having been made to endure this nauseated him again, and suddenly he was retching and made it to the toilet bowl just in time to empty the contents of his stomach into it. He rinsed his mouth out with water, but it wasn’t enough to remove the taste of stomach acid. In desperation he wet the toothbrush and scoured it over the soap and then scrubbed his teeth and tongue, trying to suppress gagging over the taste. Suddenly exhausted and cold, he returned to his pallet bed and drew the blanket around him and tried to ignore the throbbing in his head and ribs. He had no concept of how much time had gone by since his abduction or what time of the day it was, the room was gloomy and the only light was what came through the window. The day was grey and overcast outside rendering it even darker. He had searched for a light, but the light switch had failed to turn anything on and he was forced to accept that he would have to sleep when it turned dark. There was nothing else to do, and no light to do it by. This didn’t sit well with him, he was by nature a bit of a night owl, and this had become even more pronounced over his years as a policeman. Call-outs and troubling cases had all made it harder to get a decent seven hours a night. In any case, he prefered to fill his hours alone at home with music and books and a mug of coffee, or when the mood took him, whiskey.

The gloom darkened after a while heralding that night had arrived. James tightened the blanket around him and tried not to think. The smell of the rats was vile and the more he tried not to notice it, the more it seemed to stink. He wondered what Robbie was doing now, whether he was still in the safe-house, and whether he had heard that James had disappeared. He assumed that Innocent and Peterson were well aware by now and on the case already. Would they tell Lewis? Probably not. He knew Lewis would be fit to be tied and insist on working the case himself. If they wanted to keep him safe, they would have to keep him in the dark. In the dark. Ha. He heard himself chuckling quietly. His head felt worse now, and he would have killed for some paracetamol, instead he gripped his head and tried to breathe in between the waves of pain. Eventually, he gave in and let his mind focus on the one good thing he could think of: Robbie. Robbie with his dry sarcasm, his love for a puzzle and a pint, his kindly blue eyes and his quiet grins when James had done something that tickled him. Robbie centered him when he was starting to get obsessed with the wrong thing on an investigation. He put up with James’s outbursts of quotes and random lectures on Aquinas and the difference between monks and friars. No-one had ever done that for him before. In fact, Lewis showed signs of enjoying the esoteric subjects, the inevitable subsequent teasing was never barbed, only ever amused.

He drifted into sleep without even noticing.

He woke feeling cold and shivered under the blanket, trying to get warm before moving. Maybe he would have to move to keep warm he thought, remembering how the other poor bastards had died. The weather was milder now though, so he had that going for him. Also, he was younger and healthier. So long as he didn’t starve he ought to be able to keep going until Peterson found him, or failing that, Lewis. He was sure that Lewis would be allowed on the case if it dragged on for too long.

That made him think of food. The idea of the powder made his stomach turn. He’d tasted the brand before, when his aunt had been close to the end of her life and couldn’t stomach real food. He still associated the taste and smell with her and her dying, and her anger and sorrow at losing her faith in a God that would allow such pointless suffering. His stomach growled and reluctantly he rose, gripping the blanket around his shoulders for warmth and went and examined the container with the powder. The writing on the tin informed him to use two scoops so he added them to the plastic container, filled it with water and pressed the lid on firmly before shaking it vigorously. It tasted as vile as he remembered, overly-sweet and artificial, with lumps of powder that hadn’t dissolved into the mixture. He’d have to shake it longer next time. He wondered how long it would last and when, if ever, it would be replaced. He was assuming Butler didn’t want him to starve to death, at least not immediately. The grim realisation of his helplessness and dependance on the man shook him and it took all his self-control not to scream in frustration. Then he went to piss in the toilet, scrubbed his face with soap and water, and then went back to the bed. His eyes felt gritty and dry, and he resigned himself to the fact that he could no longer sleep in his contact lenses. They were designed to be disposed of after a single day, and it wasn’t as if there was anything in the cell that he hadn’t already seen. He removed them reluctantly and resigned himself to an indistinct world of blurry edges. The pain in his head had subsided, although he had a bump on the back that was still tender and seemed to have bled a bit, although he had no way of checking it beyond carefully probing at it with his fingertips. His ribs were still killing him, and the discomfort was affecting his breathing, making him take shallow breaths to avoid them hurting worse. God, he was going to go insane sitting here with nothing to do and only his own head for company. Maybe he should try meditating. As always, he found his thoughts straying back to Robbie, and he tried to picture them sitting by the river with pints of bitter, bantering back and forth about something trivial.

His reverie was interrupted by an electronic squeal and then an amplified voice spoke, emanating from somewhere in the ceiling.

“I see you have made your acquaintance with your new home. Welcome.”

James remained silent.

“Let’s see how well a policeman does when he’s reduced to the life of a convict. Not so haughty now, are you?”

James blinked and said nothing.

“Cat got your tongue? Nothing to say? Never mind, you can just listen to me then. You’ll come to like it, it will be the only break in your otherwise boring day of nothingness.”

The voice sounded gloating and vindictive.

“See how well you like it, day after day.”

“I’m just wondering,” said James suddenly, half surprised that his voice didn’t wobble, “how stupid you actually are. You kidnapped a policeman. That means that the police will be the first people who know I’m missing, and not just any police, the ones who are already looking for you. They’ll find me, they’ll find you, and then you will go back to prison for what will be the rest of your life. If you wanted to stay in prison, you could have just avoided parole.”

“This is revenge,” Butler replied. “Payback for the years of my life wasted rotting in jail with only workshops and banal courses to break the monotony.”

“I think you’ll find society will regard your endurance of monotony an acceptable trade-off for keeping them safe from a murderer,” said James.

“Of course I would have prefered Chief Inspector Morse. He was such an arrogant man, the idea of him being humbled like this would have been pleasing. Lewis would have been an acceptable replacement for his part too, but you’ll do for now.”

“You won’t get your hands on Lewis. You’ll be in jail too soon for that.”

“You’re very sure of that,” came the disembodied reply. “It might come too late for you.”

Just like that he was gone and the cell fell silent. James found he was shivering, more from tension than from cold, and he wrapped the blanket tighter around him and tried to stop his thoughts from racing. As before, his thoughts turned to Robbie, and he let himself dwell there, calmed by the memory of Lewis smiling at him and lightly touching his shoulder as they walked along some street somewhere. If he kept this up he’d develop some full-blown delusional fantasy about him, but he couldn’t help it. Robbie was what was good in his life, what made him happy, even if it was just as his colleague and his mentor.

As the light dimmed again, signalling the end of the day James considered doing push ups to relieve the boredom, but after one brief attempt he realised his chest still hurt too badly to do it. Ditto sit ups. He was confined to his head.

When he woke again his first thought was that he was starving. He’d only eaten once the day before, partly out of revulsion for the mixture, and partly because he had no idea how long the food needed to last him. Besides, he wasn’t exactly doing much so it wasn’t like he needed much in fuel. He missed cigarettes more anyway. But this morning he was starving, so he mixed himself some more of the drink and sipped it slowly, trying to eke it out to make it more satisfying. After his morning ablutions he went back to his pallet and considered trying push ups again. His chest was still painful though, and he wished he’d learned yoga. As it was, there was nothing to do, unless Butler decided to talk to him again. James didn’t think he relished that idea very much. He felt tired and decided he may as well sleep. As a policeman, he’d built up an impressive sleep debt that HR was always warning against and advising healthful practises to follow to avoid it in their tedious monthly emails, along with getting your annual flu vaccine, something that James had forgotten to get around to doing, now that he thought of it. There wasn’t a copper who didn’t manage to go through periods of sleep deprivation, it came with the job. Nevertheless, this was an opportunity to make it up, he reckoned, so he shut his eyes and let himself drift off. 

He became dimly aware of a voice interrupting his sleep and as consciousness came back he realised it was Butler.

“I did a little research on you, and aren’t you an interesting man? The man who tried to be a priest, but ended up a policeman instead.”

James ignored him.

“Then I dug back a little further and discovered where you came from. Turns out that the fancy accent and posh public school aren’t quite an accurate picture of who you are. You’re a farm-boy off a big estate, nothing more than the spawn of the hired help. That must have given you quite a bit of trouble, fitting in at school, hmm? We all know how much the upper classes love a working class interloper in their ranks, especially a scholarship boy who’s an awful swot and is only there on hard work and good marks.”

Butler didn’t seem to care that James was not joining in, if anything he seemed to like the sound of his own voice.

“But then I struck gold. Mortmaigne.”

James shivered involuntarily.

“The Lord and Master of Crevecoeur, now serving life for multiple counts of rape of two of the young children on the estate. He gave them music lessons and took what he wanted in return. So now I wonder, James, are you musical? Do you play an instrument? Were you also one of _his_ children?”

James turned his back and faced the wall on his pallet and tried to listen to his heartbeat.

“Or were you the lucky one who got away? Did your parents have to ruin their livelihoods to keep their son from the monster? Did they resent you for it?”

James pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to think of the night in the pub with Laura and Robbie, laughing over work stories and letting Lewis reminisce about The Good Old Days and When Music Was Really Something.

At some point he was aware that Butler had stopped talking. His chest hurt.

He woke in darkness and had no idea whether it was night or early morning. All the sleeping had left him disoriented and with a poor grasp of passing time. He wasn’t hungry at all, and he tried singing to entertain himself, but his voice sounded all wrong, thin and croaky, and his chest ached. He felt dizzy and sore and wished for nicotine and painkillers, preferably together. When he got out of here he was going to probably smoke himself stupid. And get drunk. And take painkillers. No, maybe that last combination wasn’t a great idea. Okay, he conceded, he would get drunk if he wasn’t in need of painkillers. That would work. He slept again.

He woke to the sound of Butler’s voice again, but he ignored it and staggered to his feet and went to mix himself some more of the stomach-turning mixture and forced it down his throat. He noticed that his throat was sore. Great. He was getting a cold, or worse, flu. Serve him right for not getting the flu vaccine when he was told to. He was fairly sure Robbie had gone and James had waved it off and said he would do it later, and then had promptly forgotten.

When Butler gave up and the room fell silent, James attended to his morning (or was it afternoon?) ablutions. He had no idea if Butler was watching him or not during their ‘conversations’, but he had no intention of using the toilet with an audience. Then he returned to his pallet and tried to recall poems he once learned to give himself something to do. He felt himself get drowsy rapidly, and his last thought was curiosity at why he was sleeping quite as much as this.

Butler’s voice woke him again, this time the man sounded peeved, no doubt frustrated that the object of his entertainment was refusing to engage with him. James wondered if Peterson was making any headway. He’d prefer not to spend any more time here if it could be helped. He tried singing again but his voice would not co-operate, the damn chest cold was getting worse and he was beginning to think that the pain in his chest had less to do with the vicious kicking he’d received from his abductor and more to do with the germs that had taken up residence in his lungs. It wasn’t surprising. This place was disgusting and probably riddled with bacteria and mold. More poetry then. Or prayers. Not that he expected God to be any more use here than he’d been at any other low point in his life. But it would give him something to do. The cuff around his ankle seemed to be freezing, even though the air temperature around him made him doubt it. Somewhere between the fiftieth Hail Mary and the ensuing Glory Be he fell asleep again.

It was daylight again, and James realised he’d no idea how long it had been since he’d last eaten or last moved. His bladder was full so he got up and tottered shakily to the loo before wearily going through the motions of making another dose of sickly gloop and gulped thirsty mouthfuls of water afterwards. He felt weak and wondered how much of this was the virus and how much of it was lack of food and regular exercise. He had a bit of a cough now, and the level of hurt in his chest didn’t bode well. There were birds chirping and twittering somewhere outside, so it was either morning or evening. He was not in the mood for more prayers, so he let his mind wander, and it went inevitably to Robbie. Robbie and his smile. Robbie and his gentle, beautiful accent. Robbie and his subtle sense of humour. Robbie who made him feel like a whole person who was good at what he did. Robbie who was strong as an ox and sharp as a razor despite his unassuming demeanour. He was in love, hopelessly so, he knew that. Had known it for a while. He was quite prepared to keep it to himself and just continue working with Robbie, day by day, content to have the man’s friendship. That was enough.

But now, with nothing but his thoughts for company, he let himself think about the more that he wanted. The things that he never let himself think about for fear of giving himself away to Robbie or Laura. He wondered what it would be like to have Robbie love him back.


	7. Chapter 7

Chief Superintendent Innocent’s heels clicked as she hurried down the corridor to DI Peterson’s ready room. It was shaping up to be one of the worst weeks of her career, and she was developing a migraine to match. Having an ex-con threaten a member of her police force was bad enough. Having a sergeant go missing without a trace, with few leads that might aid his recovery after nearly two weeks was far worse. She additionally felt slight guilt at having taken the decision to not inform Lewis of these developments, but she had judged him better off in safety under the circumstances. She trusted DI Peterson’s expertise and dedication to do his job, but on the other hand, she was down two officers now, and that had caused further headaches as she’d had to recall two vacationing members of staff already to make up the difference who were understandably disgruntled at having their time-off disrupted, but apparently decent enough to return to work at the news that a fellow-officer was in trouble.

“Right,” she said as she entered the room, “where are we on Hathaway?”

Peterson gave her a polite nod and gestured to the whiteboard and his newly expanded team.

“Hathaway failed to appear for work Tuesday morning, 15th of March. Given that numerous calls to his phone went unanswered, as well as the nature of the case, an officer was sent to his home within the hour. His car was there, but there were no signs of him. His phone was found in the bushes deliberately smashed, we assume to prevent it being pinged or traced by any of the network towers. SOCO has not retrieved anything else of note from the scene. Hathaway had emailed me the report of his work around ten thirty on the Monday night before, so we are working off the assumption that he was abducted some time after eleven when he arrived back home.”

Innocent shook her head silently. Hathaway put in far too many hours of overtime in her opinion, although in this instance it was probably a fortunate happenstance for the case.

“We pulled video footage from any traffic and home security cameras in the area, and Gurdip is looking for a match to the van that was caught on camera at the Tesco scene. We are following up on several leads and suggestions that Hathaway put forward in his report in which he also identified our accomplice, Chris Johnson. If the leads pan out, then it should go on record that Hathaway made significant contributions to cracking the case.”

Peterson looked earnest at this, and Innocent swallowed hard, trying not to think what all of them were not saying: that they might not find Hathaway in time.

“Essentially, he has identified a candidate for Butler’s accomplice. We’ve been looking for evidence to confirm that.”

“So where are we now?” said Innocent.

“We contacted Johnson’s parole officer and she said that he hasn’t missed any check-ins, however she said that she has a suspicion that he is not living at his designated address, which is his grandmother’s house. That alone would amount to a parole violation. Right now though, she has no proof, and so long as he continues checking in, she wouldn’t have sufficient cause to have him picked up. So that’s one possibility if we want to bring him in, we could get him at his next appointment. Julie will update you on the next item.”

DC Julie Lockhart stood up and walked to the front, looking a little bit nervous about talking to a room full of people. 

“I followed up on Sergeant Hathaway’s suggestion that we look at the bank accounts of both suspects. The banks have been cooperative with our investigation. Butler doesn’t appear to have anticipated this, because rather than withdrawing money and paying Johnson in cash, which would have been a lot harder to track, he moved money electronically straight into Johnson’s account. There were five payments, the first for five thousand before Johnson was released, and then four afterwards amounting in total to twenty thousand pounds. Butler’s wealthy. Very,” here she frowned, no doubt thinking of her own law-abiding and significantly smaller bank balance. “Anyway, so we have on the face of it, evidence to prove that Johnson is working for Butler. There are also payments for a flat in Uxbridge, so it’s likely that Butler is staying there. We asked plainclothes in the area to keep a lookout, and they have confirmed that a man fitting Butler’s description is in the area.”

“Excellent,” said Innocent. 

Gurdip was up next, he gave Lockhart a casual grin and a quick wink which was returned with a beaming smile by Julie, and Innocent made a mental note to have a quiet word with both of them about keeping flirting to a discreet minimum in the office.

“We pulled footage from neighbourhood security cameras from when Hathaway went missing. I cross-referenced the footage with the Tesco footage we had from the night the attempt was made on DI Lewis. Unfortunately, we were never able to get a vehicle registration number off that first scene as it was too grainy and the high speed of the vehicle against the dark background and bright street lights made the footage very poor quality, with too many artifacts to make enhancing very effective.”

Innocent cleared her throat, indicating that they did not need a brief discursion into the technical aspects of processing video material.

“Right, yeah, um. So the good news is that I was able to identify the same vehicle again appearing in Sergeant Hathaway’s neighbourhood, see here,” he indicated to the monitor next to him, “ and here, and here again as it turns out of the cul-de-sac onto the main road. This was on Monday night at eleven thirty-three. The best news is that I was able to get a clear reg. number this time, and we traced it as belonging to one Chris Johnson. The address given is not his grandmother’s address, which I’m sure comes as a big surprise to us all.”

Innocent rolled her eyes and cleared her throat again.

“Um, so, yeah, I think this is enough to place Johnson at the scene when Hathaway was abducted.”

He sat down again, with another triumphant grin aimed at Julie.

“Good work, both of you, thank you,” said Innocent. “We have enough to bring both of them in for questioning, but not enough in my opinion to charge them with anything yet outside of parole violations. Ideally, we need more, best of all we’d need a location for Hathaway. We could try our luck by putting pressure on Johnson, but - yes, what is it Hooper?”

DC Hooper had loomed into view in the doorway and was waving an envelope package at her.

“From the Front Desk, Ma’am,” he answered. “It came in addressed to Thames Valley CID. They think that you ought to see the contents right away.”

She held out her hand and Hooper gave it to her, and then opted to lurk in the immediate vicinity. She pulled it open along the tear lines that the Desk Sergeant had put into it and then struggled to suppress her reaction at the contents. Wordlessly she handed them over to Peterson, who took them and shuffled methodically through the small pile.

They were photographs, all of James Hathaway. Peterson examined each one carefully. The first must have been taken by his actual abductor, possibly less than an hour after the incident as Hathaway was unconscious, stripped to his underwear and sporting angry red bruises on his sides and some bleeding from a head wound. Johnson must have deliberately pulled up the t-shirt to show the bruised ribs off. The next showed Hathaway sleeping or huddled in a grey blanket, eyes defiant and angry. The final ones showed Hathaway in a condition Peterson had never seen him in; gaunt, straggling bits of beard on his face, dark shadows under his eyes, and pale beyond belief. He took the padded envelope they’d come in from Innocent and scrutinised the watermark. Then he took a look inside the envelope and then extracted a note that said bluntly:

HE’S BORING. HE WON’T CO-OPERATE. WHEN HIS FOOD RUNS OUT, I’M NOT REPLACING IT.

“Ma’am, I’d suggest we pull footage from the post office indicated by the watermark, it should give us additional evidence of Johnson or Butler’s connection to this.”

Innocent nodded.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That will mean a lot of video footage to be reviewed. Hours of tape just of the post office, and even more once we get a time-stamp off the street cameras. I’d like to request any additional personnel I can get. Time is of the essence here. Maybe even, - “ he trailed off. Innocent knew what he meant.

“I’ll bring Lewis in,” she said and turned and left the room. Her migraine blossomed with the power of a thousand suns.

 

It was daylight again, the light in the window was grey and dim, and the cell was barely illuminated at all, but James sat up pulling the blanket around his shoulders. It didn’t seem to be very cold, but he was shivering. He felt his forehead checking for a temperature but it didn’t feel overly hot. The ache in his lungs felt worse, every breath in and out hurt now. “Dammit, Peterson, find me,” he muttered. It was expecting a lot, he knew. Unless they’d picked up Johnson or Butler, they would be looking for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack. He shuffled over to the sink, chain dragging heavily behind him and wrinkled his nose at the tin of powder. Was he really hungry enough to eat more of this? He had calculated that his calorie intake was far below what it needed to be, lack of movement on his part notwithstanding. But his appetite had dwindled to nothing, even though he could feel hunger faintly gnawing at his insides. With a sigh he mixed up a double dose of the stuff and downed it, trying not to notice the taste. He limped back to his bed, not even attempting exercise today. He stroked his chin. His beard was growing in and it was itching. It was slow to grow, but he couldn’t work out how many days of growth he had. He gave up and lay down again. Curling up in a ball quickly became uncomfortable, so he shifted and lay on his back. He could feel drowsiness stealing over him again. This was all wrong. He couldn’t be tired again. With a sickening lurch he struggled up and murmured, “Idiot!”. Flunitrazepam was one thing that all Butler’s previous victims had in common. He’d known that from day one, and he’d somehow failed to think about it since he’d been captured. It had to be in the food powder. He was drugging himself every time he ate. He racked his brain to remember everything he’d read about it when the first case had appeared in Badger’s Drift. He hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time, what the drug itself did hadn’t seemed particularly important in comparison to finding motive and suspect. Laura had said something about it interacting badly with the alcohol that the second victim had imbibed. Or had that been the third victim? No, second. Unbidden his memory supplied: symptoms of overdose include confusion, impaired coordination, sleepiness. Adverse effects include respiratory depression, coma, and death. Had he overdosed? Probably not much. It was, after all, supposed to make you sleep. _Eat at night when you want to sleep_ he thought. Then he surrendered himself to oblivion.

There was talking somewhere. He opened his eyes hopefully and then felt his stomach sink sickeningly when the nasal tones of Butler piped into the room.

“I sent your colleagues some photographs. Let them see how well one of their own does when they’re in prison.”

James was silent for a moment. His head was clear in a way it hadn’t been after the food yesterday. What Butler thought he was achieving with the drugs escaped him for the moment, unless it was just an attempt to see his prisoner fall over like a drunk. But sending Peterson photographs? That was a tactical error.

“Keep doing that,” he said. “The more evidence they get, the easier you make it for them to find you.” 

His voice was rasping and his throat was on fire when he swallowed. He started to cough and then tried desperately to stop, the pain was like being kicked all over again. Butler was still talking but he tuned him out and tried to remember passages of books he’d once memorised as a boy. He made it through Act One, Scene One of Macbeth and then ran into trouble after “What bloody man is that?” because in his head he heard it in Robbie’s voice and it made him want to giggle. Lewis would roll his eyes, but would probably be able to finish the quote and then pretend that he’d learned it only because his kids had to study it at school - Oxford had rubbed off on Lewis during his decades living there, no matter how much he claimed the contrary. Then James would deliberately needle him by telling that there was some disputed debate over whether Shakespeare had written the scene at all, and Robbie would feign disinterest and make some comment about none of that mattering seeing as all of the contenders were long dead. He could feel himself smiling. He missed sparring with Robbie, and the gleam of intelligence in those blue eyes and the curl in the corner of his mouth when he was entertained by whatever James was rabbiting on about. 

It was silent at last in the room, Butler had given up or gone away. He got up and got some water. It would have to do if he wanted to be awake during the day. He let his mind go back to Robbie, and unbidden words of a song he’d heard somewhere sang themselves in his head.

_This indifference_  
_Was my invention_  
_When everything I did_  
_Sought your attention_

James couldn’t remember where it was from.

_You were my compass star_  
_You were my measure_

When they found him. If they found him. No, when they found him he was going to tell Robbie. Come clean. Be brave. Be honest. His chest hurt. It was bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song James half-remembers is Ghost Story by Sting.


	8. Chapter 8

“Good news, guv,” Tony looked cheerful, “you’ve been summoned back to HQ by Herself.”

“Is it over?” asked Robbie, backing into his room and hurriedly stuffing his belongings back into his bag.

“Dunno, guv. We just got word that you’re to be delivered to CID straight away.”

“Thank God for that,” said Robbie. “It doesn’t sit well, kicking me heels for weeks on end while others get all the fun.”

“That’s no lie,” said Tony.

Within the hour Robbie had been returned to Thames Valley and was sitting outside Innocent’s office. He was looking forward to being back in action. More to the point, he was looking forward to seeing James again, but that would keep for later.

The phone on the assistant’s desk beeped and after a quiet word on the phone, the assistant rose and ushered Robbie into the office and closed the door firmly behind him.

“Robbie, good to have you back,” said Innocent, looking more friendly than Lewis thought she usually did when she spoke to him. “Was everything alright with your stay?”

His stay? It’s not like he’d been at a holiday resort.

“Yes, Ma’am. No complaints here.”

“Good.” Then Innocent looked worried. “I’ll get straight to the point. Hathaway’s missing. He’s been abducted by Butler. We initially thought we’d leave you in protective custody seeing as the threat to you was still there. But Peterson is now concerned about James’s safety.”

Robbie felt his ears ring for a moment before he burst out: “Why wasn’t I told? I should have been told right away. I could have helped find him.”

Innocent chose not to respond and Lewis tried to get himself under control. “Sorry, Ma’am. It’s just, I didn’t go into a safe house just to paint a target on Hathaway’s back in my stead.”

“No, of course not,” said Innocent a little snappily. “And being a target is precisely why you’re not going to be allowed to go home now either. You’ll be working with Peterson, but you’ll be bedding down in the station.”

Lewis sighed but knew better than to object.

“You said Peterson was concerned for James’s safety?” he said.

Innocent handed over a file to him. He leafed through it and took out a sheaf of photos. It was James. His heart seemed to stop as he pored over them and he fought to keep his hands from shaking.

“When, please?”

“Two weeks ago. These photographs arrived yesterday. Peterson’s concerned that Hathaway shows signs of being drugged and ill, and is obviously injured; so he asked for any extra help he could get to speed things up.”

Lewis felt sick. He’d spent the last two weeks bored out of his skull and playing card games with the lads. All that time James had been suffering at the hands of this bastard Butler.

“Right, where can I find Peterson?” he said.

Lewis was set to watching tapes pulled from video cameras around Broadway Post Office along with Gurdip and Julie. There was so much footage to get through and so many people passing the cameras that Lewis was afraid they would miss Butler or his sidekick, Johnson. Peterson passed by once and put his hand sympathetically on his shoulder, but said nothing. By mid-afternoon Lewis felt he was going cross-eyed. Then Julie jumped from her chair and shouted “Got him! That’s Johnson!” The room sprang into action. 

“Right. Get all the footage from surrounding cameras from that time-stamp. Track him. Find his vehicle, get the registration plate number from Gurdip. Great work, Julie!” Peterson said.

As a special dispensation, perhaps as a sort of olive branch for being kept in the dark about James, Lewis was given the use of Innocent’s personal bathroom, which included a swanky shower, for the duration of his station confinement - an experience that was weird as all hell, if you asked him, he wasn’t used to showering in an aromatic cloud of Dior’s Poison - but he was relegated to a sleeping bag and the bed in the nick’s sick-room for sleep. He tossed for hours fretting about James. He had visions of finding James too late, lifting his lifeless body in his arms. He’d carried him before, years ago when Hathaway had been unconscious in a burning building. James had been lighter than he’d looked, a little on the thin side even in those days, and the lad had gotten even thinner over the years. Someone needed to look after him, or make him look after himself better. Robbie could do that, couldn't he? Get the lad eating better. Better than sandwiches and chicken vindaloo takeaway with his guv’nor late at night, anyway. He knew James could cook, so the question was, why didn’t he? Robbie had let them both work late on too many nights. He’d gotten into the habit himself after Val died, when he’d dreaded going home to an empty place, where the bottle of brandy loomed as his only company, and working late had given him a shield against drinking himself into oblivion. But then he’d let James hang around with him instead of ordering him home. He’d tried at first, but when James had insisted on staying too, he’d given up too easily, welcoming the presence of someone else on his late-night vigils. Then it had become routine, both of them working after hours, leading as often as not to a late pint and a microwaved carton of food. They got results fast at the expense of becoming social waifs and strays. Only a summons from Laura could demand that they shut up shop before they’d worked themselves to a standstill. With hindsight, he was worse than Morse, allowing his sergeant to work overtime when there’d been no pressing reason. When it had been not much more than a need for company that Robbie had allowed to go unchecked. At first it had probably been easier to use work as an excuse to stay on together in the evenings, but Lewis had no excuse for letting it go on for so long. He could have found something better for them to do. Should have had the guts to suggest something better for their evenings. But there was always that nagging fear that James would have retreated from his company once the excuse of work had been taken away and they were both faced with the reality that they had become each other’s best friend.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the images from the photographs surrounded him. James, pale and bruised. Chained. Drugged. Alone. It made him burn with shame that he had been afraid to do better by James.

He couldn’t sleep.

The following morning the entire team sat for hours in front of video footage, painstakingly tracking Johnson as he wound his way down the road, stopping for fags, then for a kebab at a street vendor and finally for a piss against the wall around the back of a car-park. Apparently his duties as abductor-in-chief were light and his interests revolved around creature comforts.

Later on he wandered into a strip club and emerged some hours later looking a little unsteady on his feet. This did not seem to deter him from heading off to his van and then setting out along the Finchley Road before ending his journey in Child’s Hill.

“Get him for drink-driving too,” muttered Lewis testily.

“Pick them both up,” said Innocent when Peterson and Robbie brought her up to speed in her office. “Work on Johnson, he might be more prepared to hang Butler out to dry. And Lewis, you’re under no circumstances to go near Butler.”

“Understood, Ma’am,” Lewis said wearily.

“It’s the right psychology, which you’re always going on about,” she said. “He wants your attention. He’s not going to get it.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he said.

“So, you will put pressure on Johnson to give up Butler, but obviously I don’t have to tell you that right now it’s even more important that you get a location on James.”

They were dismissed and Peterson immediately dispatched uniformed teams to pick up Butler and Johnson. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

Gurdip burst through the door looking excited.

“I think I have something!”

They crowded around him. 

“That last photograph of Sergeant Hathaway taken from high up, it shows more of the room. Notice that? It’s a privacy wall. You know, a privacy wall in front of a toilet? That’s a cell. A police cell, I mean. We’re looking for an abandoned police station and there’s definitely one not twenty miles from Oxford.”

Lewis sprang up. One look at Peterson and the man joined him, issuing orders. 

“Right, we’re going to need the whole team. Hooper, get an angle-grinder and metal cutters issued to us. Lockhart, get an emergency paramedic team to meet us at the location. Lewis, you okay to drive?”

Robbie nodded, and then the room flashed into action.

The old station off the Thame Road had once served the North Weston area before it had been subsumed into Thames River Valley and its buildings mothballed like so many others before it.

“Here, sir! The front doors are open!” a uniformed DC was calling as Peterson and Lewis pulled up. Robbie charged from his car and sprinted into the building.

“James? Hathaway? James?”

There was no answer.

He headed down the corridor, where he judged the cells would be from the basic layout of the building. He was faced with a row of doors, shut fast and slots closed. He ran from door to door, lifting slots to peer into the derelict rooms. At the end of the row he lifted the final slot and saw a figure bundled up on a makeshift bed. 

“Hathaway! James!” 

He pounded on the door. There was no response. The rest of the team had caught up with him now and he tried the door. It was locked shut.

“Hooper,” said Peterson immediately, “get the hinges. We’ll take the whole door off.”

Lewis could barely stand to wait while Hooper carefully drilled the screws on the door. Finally he and another DC carefully lifted the door off its hinges.

Robbie was first through the doorway. Peterson seemed to understand that as James’s partner, he would need to be. The noise from the drills had not made a difference to James. He lay on his side, still as death. Robbie fell to his knees beside him and felt his forehead. It was clammy, but warm, and he could see now that James was breathing slightly, with an awful rasping sucking sound on every breath.

“He’s alive!” he shouted.

James’s eyelids fluttered open, but his eyes seemed vacant behind them.

“Lewis,” Peterson was next to him now. “Let the paramedics through, Robbie.”

Robbie stepped back obediently, his heart beating wildly. James looked like a dying man. The two medics appeared from behind him and bent over James. He barely breathed as they checked James’s pulse and blood pressure, and fitted nasal cannula hooked up to an oxygen tank.

“We’ll get him to a hospital right away,” one of them announced. “I’m guessing it’s severe pneumonia. Someone’s going to have to cut these chains off him.”

One of the police officers ran forward with bolt-cutters and wrangled the chains until they snapped with a sharp crack. 

Within seconds the team had moved Hathaway onto a stretcher and were moving him to the ambulance.

Robbie stood dumbly for a moment. Peterson was talking to him.

“Eh?”

“Come on, I’m going to drop you to the hospital. Lockhart, you follow in the Inspector’s car. Lewis, your keys.”

Robbie nodded and fumbled in his pockets automatically, and handed them over to Julie. He felt as if he was moving under water, and was grateful that Peterson was in charge. SOCO were starting to swarm in and Peterson had a brief word with his sergeant and then ushered Lewis over to his car. He gave Lewis a brief, understanding look and a half-smile before turning the ignition and pulling the car out. Nothing needed to be said. Coppers knew what it meant to lose a partner. At the hospital Lewis numbly let himself be led to the waiting room while Peterson spoke to the reception desk and then returned to him.

“You stay. I’ll clear everything with Innocent.”

Robbie nodded his thanks, still reeling and panicked at the vision of James lying pale and unmoving in the cell. He barely noticed when Julie arrived and handed over his keys, touched his shoulder sympathetically, and then disappeared with Peterson. Time ticked by as he sat and felt helpless, and whenever a doctor appeared he would catch his breath in anticipation, only to have his hopes crumble when they walked past.

“Inspector Lewis?”

He jumped in surprise.

“Me,” he said rising as fast as he could.

“You’re the partner of James Hathaway?”

“Yes.”

“Right,” the doctor nodded quickly. “He has pneumonia and he’s quite ill. The x-ray shows extreme congestion and swelling. The other injuries are minor. He’s running a temperature which indicates that infection has set in and he’s also dehydrated and a little malnourished, so he’s now on antibiotics and fluids. We’re going to keep him here for a few days until he’s out of immediate danger. After that, he’s going to have to recuperate at home. It’s going to take a while, he’s going to be in a weakened state for several weeks.”

Lewis nodded in a daze.

“Can I see him now?”

The doctor smiled at him. “You can. We don’t normally allow people to visit for long in these circumstances, but I’ve been informed of the unusual circumstances surrounding this case, so we’ll let you stay until he regains consciousness.”

“Thank you,” he said. His own voice sounded thin to him, and he realised he was shaking slightly. 

“We’ve admitted him to a private ward. I’ll take you to him.” She smiled at him kindly and Lewis blinked sudden tears back as she led him down corridors until she stopped outside a door. “He could be sleeping for a while; his body has been through a lot, so don’t be too concerned if he doesn’t wake for several hours. You might want to get yourself a sandwich in a bit after you’ve seen him. Get something to read.”

Then she was gone and Lewis was left by himself.

For a moment he let himself stand in the corner just watching James and listening to the hiss of the oxygen tank next to the bed. James had been cleaned up a bit, but was lying motionless and as pale as a marble statue on the bed. His upper torso was raised by the bed and he was strapped to it which infuriated Lewis for a second when he saw it, until he realised that it was to prevent James from slipping down. He was puzzled for a moment at the odd position they had left James in until it he remembered the shallow rasping breaths James had been gasping in the cell. It hit him and he staggered backwards into the armchair behind him as if he’d been physically pushed. The strange elevated position was to help keep James breathing. After a few minutes he stood up again and returned to James’s side. Carefully he reached out and touched his brow and tried to push the hair back from his face. The lad was in a right state after all this time with no razor or comb, he was all straggly beard and messed up hair. Nothing like his polished clever clogs usually looked.

“You’re safe now, James,” he whispered, his voice deserting him again.

A nurse looked in some time later, Robbie was still at James’s side.

“He’s going to be out of it for a while, you know. You should go get something to eat. It could be hours yet.” 

He retreated politely while she did a quick check on her patient and then when his stomach grumbled at him, he admitted defeat and found the cafeteria and bought a ham and cheese roll which he took outside to eat and discovered it was evening. He sat in his car while he ate and then remembered he still had James’s Tablet in the boot with the rest of the contents of the bag he’d been living out of for weeks, and went to retrieve it. There. Something to read. 

He headed back to the room but James was still lying unmoving and pale, looking for all the world like that statue of Shelley at University College they had once visited on a case. Robbie couldn’t stop himself from touching James’s head again, smoothing his hair and gently stroking his temple with his fingers. Then he retreated to the seat and settled in for a long read.


	9. Chapter 9

Lewis woke some hours later and found he was not quite as stiff as he’d feared from spending the night in a chair. His eyes snapped immediately to the bed where James was blearily blinking at the lights. He vaulted out of his seat and James’s eyes refocused on him as he bent over the bed.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“Robbie,” James’s voice was no more than a croaky whisper.

“Don’t try to talk. You’re in hospital, James. You’re safe now.”

“Sore. Everything hurts.”

“You’ve got pneumonia, lad. But you’re on antibiotics so you’ll be right as rain soon. I’ll ask the nurses to give you something for the pain.”

“No! Please don’t go.” James sounded so panicked that Robbie halted immediately and returned to his side. James’s fingers curled around his hand tightly.

“I’m staying, promise. I only wanted to get you something for the pain, James.”

He could have smacked himself for stupidity. Of course the lad was panicking, he’d been alone and helpless for more than two weeks. Robbie reached out and touched James’s brow, pushing at errant strands of hair that stuck to his forehead.

James’s eyelids fluttered and he muttered something that Robbie couldn’t make out. Then his eyes flicked open again and fixed on Robbie.

“Are you a dream?”

“No lad, this is real.”

“You’re beautiful, you know.”

Lewis spluttered.

“Try that again when you’ve got your contact lenses in, James,” he countered lamely.

“You are,” his hoarse rasping took on a little more vehemence and ended in a horrendous wheezing cough that wracked James’s body and clearly hurt a great deal more than he was expecting judging from the look of shock on his face afterwards. 

“James, I have to get you a nurse, you’re in pain. I’ll be back in seconds, promise.” His mind on alerting the staff, Robbie raised James’s hand and kissed it. It was only five steps out into the corridor that he realised what he’d done. He rushed down to the nurses’ station and called out, “He’s awake, but he’s in pain.” It was enough for them to spring into action and Lewis found himself removed to the outside of the room while a staff nurse adjusted James’s drip and took his temperature and did other medical things that Robbie couldn’t quite fathom.

The nurse returned minutes later and said, “You’d better go back in, he’s asking for you.” Then she continued in a lowered voice, “The more he sleeps the better right now, but I think knowing you’re here will help.”

Robbie returned to the bedside and automatically took James’s hand back in his.

“See, told you I’d be back.”

“You said seconds, and it was ages.”

“I can’t believe you can barely breathe and you’re still trying to argue with me.”

“It’s an affliction of mine,” James slurred agreeably. He shut his eyes for a few seconds and then blinked sleepily before fighting to open them again. Lewis sighed. Evidently Hathaway was going to argue with the drugs as well.

“You kissed me,” James said suddenly.

“Aye. Thought you’d probably noticed that.”

James’s face was transformed suddenly in a luminescent smile.

“I love you too,” he whispered before letting his eyes flicker shut. Then he was out like a light. 

Lewis returned to his seat and sat down with a thump, stunned by this sudden turn of events. He hadn’t been sure how to tell James, or when. In fact, he had been half-afraid he wouldn’t have the nerve to even start the conversation; and now apparently the matter was settled without his saying a word; unless James woke up again later and didn’t remember this, which now that he thought about it, was a possibility. Sighing at his own cowardice he dragged his chair closer to the bed and took James’s hand again while flicking on the Tablet with his free hand. He propped it up against James’s leg and resumed his reading for whole minutes until sleep took him too. Then Laura was waking him with a shake to his shoulder, and rescued the Tablet and returned it to the bedside cabinet.

“I’m afraid that so far science hasn’t established any plausible mechanism through which reading can occur by osmosis,” she said. “Otherwise all the kids would be doing it.”

Robbie gaped at her and she winked.

“So how’s our Sleeping Beauty?”

“He was awake for a few minutes,” said Robbie. “Argumentative as ever, of course.”

Laura grinned.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” he added.

“He will be. Under normal circumstances pneumonia is never allowed to advance as far as his did, it’s too dangerous, the patient’s immediately put on anti-inflammatories and then antivirals or antibiotics if it doesn’t improve. What happened to him was - well,” she put her hand on Robbie’s arm, “it was damn close, if you hadn’t found him when you did.”

Robbie was glad he was sitting down. Laura sat on the armrest and put her arm around his shoulder.

“He’ll be alright now,” she said, “but it’s going to take time. He’s going to be on bedrest for a month minimum, he’s going to be weak, he will be in pain until the swelling and the infection in lungs clears. On the plus side he’s probably not going to want a cigarette any time soon.”

She squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. “On the minus side, you’re going to have to start learning to cook nourishing meals instead of nuking a plastic tub of gloop.”

Lewis sighed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll help.”

“Thanks, Laura,” he said.

“And by ‘help’ I mean I’ll coach you through some recipes. You’re doing the actual cooking.”

Lewis sighed again.

“I love him,” he confessed gloomily.

Laura laughed quietly and put both her arms around him and gave him a hug.

“That,” she said, “has been blindingly obvious for months.”

 

Robbie found that the simple fact of James regaining consciousness temporarily had reverted his right to be present at the bedside to normal visiting hours only, whether he liked it or not, and so he went home and took a much-needed shower, crawled under his duvet for the first time in weeks, and slept for hours.

He’d been relegated to paperwork at the office, which for the first time in his career, he was grateful for. He was quite content to let Peterson run the rest of this alone as he wasn’t sure if he could keep from hurting Johnson or Butler if he saw either of them. For the rest of the week he turned up at the hospital at allotted times, only to find James sleeping or hovering between consciousness and oblivion.

“It’s normal,” said the ward sister. “He’s very ill and between that and the painkillers, sleep is all he’s good for right now.”

Robbie wanted to protest that James was good for so much more, but he saw her point and decided to sit quietly by the bedside and try not to worry or be too disappointed. Every so often James would stir and twitch, but he rarely opened his eyes. Robbie called in at HR before he knocked off on Wednesday to let them know that he would need to take two weeks leave as soon as Hathaway was allowed out of the hospital, and slightly upset the HR manager when he insisted that no, he couldn’t be more specific about the actual dates and yes, he would be taking them regardless of whether they treated as unpaid leave or holidays. On Thursday James was awake before Robbie got there, and he was treated to James lighting up and smiling as he entered the room.

“Hello, you,” said Robbie.

James croaked his name in reply.

Robbie stood next to the bed and took his hand immediately. 

“You’ve been sleeping like a log for days. How’re you feeling?”

“Awake,” said James taking a look at their joined hands and slipping a tremulous smile up at him. “I didn’t dream that bit, did I? I mean the bit where you kissed me and I said I loved you?”

“No. Wasn’t a dream. I have to admit, it wasn’t planned either - doing that.”

James’s expression faltered.

“No, what I mean is, that wasn’t how I planned to tell you how I felt about you, James. Should have done it better.”

The lad’s face cleared immediately.

“It was perfect. I woke up from a nightmare and you kissed me.”

Robbie realised he was beaming. 

“They say they’re letting me out of here on Friday. Apparently they need the bed back.”

“Good, that’s a good sign.”

“Would you, um. Could you give me a lift back to mine tomorrow?”

Robbie shook his head. 

“We’ll stop along the way so you can pick up some pyjamas, but you’re staying at mine for a bit. There’s no way I’m letting you on your own until you’re properly better.”

James gave him a weak smile that did not hide his relief.

“Now I know you’re not feeling well,” said Robbie. James raised his eyebrow. “First time you haven’t argued with me, in ooh, about seven years.”

James cackled and then hacked painfully and stared at him reproachfully.

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” he rasped.

“Sorry,” said Robbie cheerfully.


	10. Chapter 10

“You can’t be serious,” said Robbie disbelievingly. “You can hardly breathe, man. You are not having a cigarette.”

James glared at him.

“Look, I’ll get you some of those patches or something. You’re not undoing your recovery by inhaling poison.”

“If it’s so bad for me then it has to be bad for the germs as well,” James muttered sullenly.

Robbie would have raised his eyes to the gods on high if he’d believed in any. James in recovery was proving to be a grouchy, cantankerous misery. He’d been installed in Robbie’s spare room after a brief reconnaissance trip to James’s flat to gather pyjamas (tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts) and a selection of books, his glasses (contact lenses were apparently not a good idea if you were going to keep falling asleep, so said James) and his guitar, although Robbie privately doubted there would be any playing in his current weakened state. However, he understood James’s need to have it with him for comfort. Now James was lying propped up against a mountain of pillows needed to keep him upright so that he could breathe more easily and sulking at his inability to totter further than a few feet at a time. A brief foray into the living-room had resulted in a wobble and an inelegant collapse on the sofa and then an undignified return to bed under Robbie’s firm arms. The result was that James now had a face as dark as thunder and had gone silent in his fury. Robbie took it as a sign that the lad was recovering, albeit slowly and painfully. He took a cup of tea through to James and then took a deep breath and kissed him on the forehead.

“Right, I’m off. I’ll be back with some nicotine, and I can’t believe the things I’ll evidently do for you. In the meantime, stay in bed for heaven’s sakes.”

He received a contrite look for his troubles.

He dialled Laura as soon as he got into the car.

“Is it okay for him to have nicotine while he’s sick?” he said.

“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” came her crisp reply.

“Sorry, Laura. It’s just. He’s driving me mad and it’s only been one day.”

She sounded far too entertained by this admission for his liking.

“So, no luck on the not wanting to smoke then? Nicotine is the last thing he should be having, but under the circumstances it’s the lesser of two evils. Get him the oral spray, that’ll give him the hit he’s looking for. But tell him not to inhale while spraying it though, or he’ll bitterly regret it.”

“Ta. Any other advice?”

“Hmm. Always use a condom, drink a glass of water before bed, and never let your laundry sit in the tumble dryer or it wrinkles.”

“Serves me right for asking,” said Lewis dryly.

“I’ll be round soon as I can tomorrow,” she added more kindly. “It’s probably best if he tries to sleep in an elevated position for now until the swelling in his lungs goes down completely. In the meantime, soups and teas are probably the easiest for you and him.”

“Thanks, Laura.”

Robbie returned home an hour later with fruit juices, a packet of spice tea favoured by James, hard-boiled sweets, and a tub of posh vegetable soup courtesy of Marks and Spencer, and received a repentant smile from James when he handed him a bottle of nicotine spray.

“M’sorry, Robbie,” he whispered.

“Ah, forget about it, lad. I’d be cranky too under the circumstances. Laura’s coming by tomorrow, by the way. She’s taken it upon herself to supervise your diet, or my cooking, to be precise,” he added gloomily.

James stared at him with mirth in his eyes and choked on his laughter.

“Easy there,” said Robbie with a triumphant grin. “Don’t do yourself an injury.”

James’s narrowed eyes followed him out of the room.

A crash woke Robbie from deep sleep that night, which was followed by swearing and then a fit of coughing. Robbie wearily pulled himself upright, checked the glowing numbers on his alarm clock that informed him that it was after three in the morning, and wearily hauled himself out of bed.

“James, you alright, man?”

The man in question was half draped over the sofa in the living-room, gasping shallowly for breath and on the verge of tears if his red-rimmed eyes were anything to go by.

“Ah lad, what’s wrong?” Robbie hastened over to James and pulled him into a sitting position on the sofa and rubbed his back.

“It hurts and I want to sleep, and I’m so tired that I’m desperate. But every time I fall asleep I slip down off the pillows and then my lungs stop breathing and then my body wakes me up with a shot of adrenalin so that I don’t die. And then it feels like I’m dying anyway, ‘cos when you’re exhausted a shot of adrenalin is the last thing you want.”

Robbie continued rubbing his back soothingly.

“I’m so tired, Robbie, but I don’t want to die in my sleep. ‘Specially not now, just when you love me,” he finished sadly.

Robbie bit his tongue, trying not to laugh at the forlorn spectacle next to him.

“You’re not going to die, lad, not on my watch. Come along.” 

He guided James back to his own bed this time, and then went and collected the mountain of pillows from the spare room and arranged them against the headrest and got in, propping himself against the pillows and then gesturing to James to settle himself in the vee of his legs with his back against his chest and a pillow under his head. He put his arms around James.

“I won’t let you go. You can sleep safe.”

James exhaled shakily.

“Sorry, Robbie.”

“Zip it, James. Get some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

This was followed by an uncharacteristic giggle and then some wheezing from his sergeant, followed by steady breathing that slowly evened out. They were an ungainly, uncomfortable bundle of elbows and knees, and Lewis knew that this was not going to be a workable solution to the sleeping problem, so he made himself ponder it a bit before coming up with an idea that might work. Then he let himself sleep too.

Laura’s arrival the next day coincided with a delivery truck off-loading the recliner armchair that Lewis had ordered first thing, and James was reinstalled in the living-room looking pleased and slightly embarrassed as he was bundled in a duvet with a blanket and a hot water bottle on his chest, and then propped up by pillows wedged in on all sides.

“Let’s see you try an’ fall out of that one,” said Lewis with an evil grin.

James tried to look insulted but failed completely due to the dopey grin on his face. Laura tested his forehead with her hand and gave him a once over.

“I’m not here in my professional capacity, just as a Concerned Citizen, based on my previous experience of Lewis’s cooking.”

James had the nerve to look relieved.

“Well, I think you’re going to live,” she pronounced solemnly, “that is, if I manage to get Lewis trained up in the art of edible food preparation.”

“Very funny,” said Lewis with a sense of foreboding. 

His premonition of doom proved to be warranted, in Lewis’s opinion. Laura’s lesson involved a great deal of chopping of carrots and onions and getting to grips with the concepts of sauteing and simmering of chunks of beef and chicken, occasionally punctuated by comments from James from the other side of the room, who was being actively encouraged in his outrageous cheek by Laura. The jubilant tag-teaming by his two cleverest friends should have disconcerted him more, but Lewis secretly enjoyed listening to them spar and snigger (and choke in the case of Hathaway) as the lecture continued on seasonings and their various uses.

By the time Robbie was ready to concede defeat by sliced vegetable, Laura had made tea, and had persuaded James to sip at a glass of juice and take his tablets without argument. When she slipped out the front door after kissing James soundly on the cheek and grinning wickedly at at Lewis; Robbie’s fridge was laden with containers of stew and soup, of the chicken, beef and vegetable persuasion. James smiled at him happily as Robbie shut the door behind Laura. By the time he turned back to him, James had fallen fast asleep.

James seemed to rally after his move to the armchair. Lewis privately thought it was because he felt less isolated in the heart of the flat; able to watch TV, even though James claimed he had no interest in it; and able to watch Robbie as he pottered about doing the housekeeping and chopped even more vegetables and fruit for the smoothies that James and Laura had agreed would form part of the invalid’s diet. Most of the time James slept, occasionally twitching in his sleep, although whether he was dreaming or just trying to get comfortable was impossible to tell. By the end of the second week James was able to assist at the chopping board and Lewis was secretly looking forward to emancipation from the paring knife and going back to the station, even though he was beginning to enjoy this new tentative domesticity.

“You’ll be alright if I’m back at work, then?” he asked.

James smiled tightly and nodded.

“I’m fine, Robbie. I’ll listen to music and read.”

‘Read’ was code for watching execrable daytime chat shows and scowling moodily at the participants. Robbie refrained from commenting.

“I’ll stay if you’re not sure,” he said.

“I’m sure. You’ve got better things to do than watch me sleep, and I can get around on my own now.”

Robbie dropped onto the arm of the recliner and put his arm around James’s shoulders. 

“I’ll stay if you’d prefer, James. It’s not a hardship, being here with you.”

“Aren’t you bored with me by now? All I do is sleep and cough up pieces of my lungs.”

“You’re sick, pet. You’re allowed to take the time you need to get better.”

“But it can’t be any fun for you.”

“I think that’s why they make you promise for better or for worse when you get married, love. This would be the worse right now. We’ll get to the better later.”

James was staring at him silently now, his brows furrowed in thought.

“We’re not married, Robbie.”

“No, but same difference. Loving someone isn’t just about roses and dinner-parties, you know. What did they teach you at that college of yours?”

James sniffed audibly and Robbie could see his eyes were getting red and watery again. He pressed a kiss to his forehead and cradled his head against his chest.

“When you’re feeling more yourself we’ll be able to get out and about, and you won’t have to sit in that chair ever again.”

“I think I rather like this chair, actually,” said James.

Lewis grinned.

“That’s my James, contrary opinion about everything.”

James snorted inelegantly and began to cough again.


	11. Chapter 11

Lewis’s return to the station was anticlimactic, just a couple of nods on the stairs from the usual faces, a couple of people asking after James, and the familiar hum of coppers going about their business. The case against Butler and Johnson had been handed over to the prosecutors and they had been removed to another facility to wait for their court dates. He’d missed the whole thing, and he was glad. He seated himself in front of his computer and braced himself for the inevitable deluge of paperwork, what with James being out of action for a while. He missed his sergeant’s presence keenly as the morning wore on and he was forced to get his own coffee and eat his lunchtime sandwiches by himself. In the early afternoon his door swung open and Innocent entered, shutting it firmly behind her.

“Lewis, a word.”

“Ma’am.”

“How’s Hathaway doing?”

Robbie shrugged expressively. 

“Good. Fine cranky form, but good, all things considered. He’s not back to full strength yet, but he’s able to potter around a bit now. Still got quite a cough on him, of course.”

Jean nodded. 

“Excellent. And mentally, in your opinion? As someone who’s worked with him for years, of course?”

Robbie frowned, unwilling to divulge personal details about James.

“I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to be passing judgement on my sergeant’s emotional state,” he started, “but on the whole I’d say he’s handled the whole thing rather well. Laura Hobson’s dropped by a few times to visit him, and I’m sure she’d say something if there was anything that worried her.”

Innocent nodded again.

“Okay,” she said, “noted. There’s something you should know about. It’s very confidential, but as his partner, and his - er, friend, I’m choosing to let you know.”

She produced a small pile of DVDs from an envelope and gestured with them.

“These were recovered from Butler’s place. They’re recordings of James talking to Butler. Peterson took them away from the team as soon as he knew what was on them, he felt that as Hathaway is a colleague it would be inappropriate for them to be reviewed by his peers. When he started to view their content, he stopped and handed them over to me, he felt it was better if I reviewed them instead for the same reason. I concurred.”

Robbie frowned, but felt a small if alien flicker of gratitude toward Peterson.

“That’s decent of him.”

“Yes,” said Innocent. “Anyway, to get to the point, Hathaway acquitted himself well. He was rather blistering in his contempt for Butler but stayed calm under, well, very difficult circumstances. However, Butler did some digging around into his background and made some allegations about his childhood that are,” here she paused and hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “rather concerning.”

“Concerning?” Robbie echoed in frustration.

“I’m not going into specifics, Hathaway deserves privacy - even with you, and it may be nothing, just the spiteful jibes of an evil man trying to needle a reaction out of him. James certainly didn’t confirm anything on the recording. But if it is true, any of it, well. He needs to talk to a counselor. He’ll have to anyway, before he resumes his work here.”

Lewis nodded, his eyes flicking a worried look at her.

“But, if this is to do with his past, it can’t have been anything particularly relevant to him any more. I mean, he’s been an exemplary policeman for as long as I’ve known him. It’s hardly going to start affecting his work now, surely?”

“I agree with you, mostly,” said Innocent. “It may be nothing. Or it may simply be something he dealt with a long time ago. But he needs to see a counselor for evaluation anyway after this incident, and this makes it all the more important that he goes, and this is where you come in.”

Lewis growled in irritation. Innocent raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Yes, Lewis, I’m aware of your general antediluvian attitude to psychologists; nevertheless, I’m making it your responsibility to encourage Hathaway to do as requested in this instance and not try to evade what is standard procedure in this sort of circumstance. He is not to follow your example, he is to follow orders, clear?”

“As crystal, Ma’am.”

“Good.”

Robbie’s mind was churning as he made his way home at the end of the day. He had no idea how to broach the subject with James, or how much detail to go into. Perhaps the minimalist approach was best. James was such a private person, and the intimate part of their relationship was still so very new to be testing it strenuously already. The aroma of cod and buttery potatoes surrounded him as he let himself in the door, and he was greeted by a cheery smile from a freshly-shaven James, who was hovering over the stove wrapped in Robbie’s dressing gown.

“Finally got rid of the beard, I see.”

“Mm,” said James. “Didn’t like it.”

“What’s all this then?” said Robbie, kissing James on the cheek.

“Fish pie. I suddenly realised I promised you fish pie, and then I never got to make it for you.”

Robbie thought back to that night, now an age past, even if in reality it had only been a few weeks, and put his arms around James.

“I wasn’t holding it against you, you know.”

James grinned at him.

“Innocent stopped by this afternoon, asking after you,” said Robbie.

“Oh?”

“She wanted me to apply my influence on you to see the counselor, it’s a prerequisite before returning to active duty.”

James shuddered involuntarily.

“And I am to remind you to follow orders and not my example in this instance.”

James’s eyebrows quirked at that and he looked resentful, but not nearly as much as Robbie had feared. He’d seen the lad in far worse funks about things over the years. His hunch was confirmed when they sat down to eat and James recounted Laura’s afternoon visit, which had apparently included a reading of Edward Lear’s Nonsense Verses, with fond little smiles. The prospect of the evaluation was evidently completely disregarded and forgotten.

“Also, I fell asleep on the couch today.”

“Um, well done?”

“No, Robbie, that’s not the point. The point is I didn’t stop breathing. I can lie flat again.”

All in all, Robbie considered, it could have gone a lot worse. He still burned with curiosity about what was on those recordings, but he wasn’t going to pry. He found it impossible to sleep that night though, and eventually gave up and turned on his bedside lamp and reached for a book that he’d been trying to read unsuccessfully for the past six months. Half an hour later James padded in, armed with his mountain of pillows; and with a determined little half-smile arranged them on the bed next to Robbie and climbed in beside him.

Robbie forgot to breathe for a second, then he said, “Comfy, pet?”

James nodded from amongst the pillows and reached for Robbie’s hand. Robbie leaned over and kissed him tenderly. James was all smiles tonight, even though his eyelids were drooping with drowsiness. His eyes closed. Obviously he wasn’t expecting anything more than sleep tonight.

“Sweet dreams, then.”

For a moment he watched James breathe. He was far bigger than anyone who’d shared Robbie’s bed before, all hard angles and sinewy limbs instead of soft curves. But it wasn’t the differences that made Robbie stare, but the deep sensation of joy in his chest at finally having James here at his side.

After that, his own sleep came swiftly.

When he woke the following morning he spent some minutes studying the supine form next to him. He felt a wave of tenderness for James as he considered the lad’s quiet display of affection by climbing into bed with him last night. Robbie felt slightly ashamed that there’d been so little physical intimacy between them since that day when he’d absent-mindedly revealed his true feelings to James. His speech about for better and worse notwithstanding, Robbie had let them default to mundane domesticity in the intervening weeks, with no roses or grand gestures, only chaste kisses and brief hugs. True, James was ill and had hardly been in a fit state for anything much in the last three weeks; but nevertheless he deserved better than that accidental revelation of love in hospital and passing touches. Robbie bent over him and gently stroked James’s hair. Instantly James came to life under his hands.

“Mm, that’s nice,” he whispered.

Robbie bent closer and kissed his temple.

“It’s nice waking up next to you,” he replied with a slight catch in his breath, and watched James’s mouth curve into a smile of happiness.

James’s eyes blinked open and he shifted slightly so that he could look straight into Robbie’s eyes. He seemed to be choosing his words for a few seconds and then he said, “Sometimes when I sleep I dream I’m back there; but then I wake up and you’re here and suddenly none of that matters anymore.”

Robbie continued stroking his hair and pondered that admission before replying.

“I was so afraid,” he said, “when I heard that you’d been taken. I used to think that my greatest fear was you would realise I loved you and not want me in return. But then you were gone and I knew that my real fear was that you would never know how much you matter to me. I should have told you before, I’m sorry that it took this to make me come to my senses.”

James chuckled at him.

“I’ve always wanted you,” he informed Robbie loftily.

“Now you tell me.”

“And you’re going to be late for work if you don’t get up now.”

Lewis sighed. 

“ _Sic transit gloria mundi_ ,” he mumbled. 

James chuckled.

“Very good, Robbie. I fully expect there to be some poetry from Catullus by the end of the month.”

Lewis grinned and kissed him lingeringly and then reluctantly got out of bed.


	12. Chapter 12

By the end of the month James was nearly back to normal. Laura had declared him fit for exercise again in her opinion, and James discreetly elected not to mention that he and Robbie had embarked on their own exercise regime some time ago already, mostly of the horizontal variety, although there had been a vertical workout on one memorable occasion in the shower. He suspected she knew anyway, judging from her knowing grin.

On informing Innocent of his intention to return to work, James was reminded rather firmly of his required visit to the counselor. The reminder did not go down well, and only his promise to Robbie that he would not take up smoking again prevented the return of cigarettes being chain-smoked outside the back door. Robbie said nothing but gave him a consolatory pat on the shoulder as James flipped open his laptop with an annoyed scowl on his face and searched for something online, his fingers feverishly tapping out cryptic words on the keyboard. Robbie hummed quietly to himself and went to make tea. When he returned bearing steaming mugs and a pack of ginger biscuits, James was looking satisfied about something and took his mug with a polite thank you.

“Dare I ask?” said Robbie carefully.

“Research,” said James as if that explained anything.

“Okay,” said Robbie feeling his way tentatively.

“It’s for the interview tomorrow,” said James.

“I think they like to call them ‘sessions’ these days,” said Robbie.

“Except, it’s not a session, I’m being formally evaluated to see if I’m fit for duty. I’m not going to pretend that this is something I want or will find helpful.”

Robbie began to rub his back soothingly. 

“Okay, love. I’m not disagreeing here. They made me see one too, when Val died. Just - don’t go into it in full attack mode, see it as a means to an end. You’ll be alright.”

James bit into his biscuit contemplatively and sighed heavily.

When Robbie returned home the following evening, there was no sign of James anywhere. Tamping down the alarm that immediately constricted his throat, Robbie rang James’s mobile only to get his automatic answer service. Rationally, Lewis knew that Butler was back in jail and there was no way he could harm James again, but he could feel the panic rise up inside him just at not knowing that James was safe at home. He called the desk sergeant who informed him that Hathaway had left hours ago, and then tried Laura.

“No, he isn’t here. I haven’t spoken to him today at all. It was the counselor thing today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” said Laura.

“What do you mean by hmm?” said Robbie.

“Counseling helps a lot of people cope with all sorts of issues, but it rather presupposes that the person in question wants to be helped in that way. If I know anything about you two boys at all, it’s that neither of you is particularly a sharer when it comes to emotions and feelings. I can’t imagine that James particularly relished the idea of being forced to speak to a stranger about his private thoughts.”

“You think it went badly?”

“I don’t think anything at all, Robbie. He may just need to be alone for a bit. Don’t go jumping to conclusions without any facts.”

Then she relented.

“Look, I know you care about him, and I know that you’re worried. But he probably just wanted some space. Have you even tried him at home? At his home, I mean.”

Robbie blinked at his own stupidity.

“I didn’t think.” He could just picture her exasperated expression right now. “Laura? In your professional opinion, what do you think of James’s mental state?”

Her tone became sharper.

“If I did have a professional opinion of him; which I don’t because I am not a psychologist, nor is James my patient; I wouldn’t share it with anyone other than James. Doctor-patient confidentiality exists for a reason, Lewis.”

Then her voice softened again.

“But as his friend, and yours; James is okay, Robbie. He’s been through something bad, but he’s dealing with it in his own way, and a part of that is because of your support.”

“I’m sorry, Laura,” he said contritely.

“Apology accepted. Now why are you standing there talking to me? Go and find James.”

There were lights on in James’s flat when Robbie drew up in front of it, and immediately he felt the clenching in his stomach relax.

He knocked on the door and James answered it in silence and stood back to let him in.

“Thank God,” said Robbie drawing him into a hug, “I was worried sick about you when you weren’t at home.”

James leaned into him all stiff and prickly at first, and then relaxed slowly by inches.

“Sorry, I didn’t think,” said James.

“That makes two of us.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. So, how did it go?”

James shrugged and frowned darkly.

“Want to talk about it?” said Lewis.

“Not particularly.”

Robbie stared at his shoes for a minute wondering how to handle this as best as possible.

“Want to come home now?”

All the resistance seemed to rush out of James in an instant.

“Yes, just let me get some things. I’ve no clothes for work. That is, if I’m ever going back to work again.”

Robbie grimaced. This was not a good sign.

James picked at dinner, distracted and silent; but once they retired to the couch with mugs of tea and Robbie had selected some channel at random on the telly, he suddenly spoke.

“She asked me about Crevecoeur. When I asked her how she could possibly pick that name at random, she said she didn’t and that it was in the referral file prepared for her. Apparently there are recordings of Butler,” here his voice shook slightly, and he took a long breath, “talking to me, and the file recommended that I was asked about my childhood at Crevecoeur.”

“Ah,” said Lewis.

“Ah? You _knew_ about it? Is there anyone at the station who doesn’t know about it?” James’s voice was pitched low, but Robbie could hear the cold fury that was hovering barely beneath his words.

“Hang on, nobody knows anything, James. Peterson took the recordings to Innocent the moment he realised they might contain personal stuff. No-one’s seen them, except perhaps for Innocent. I don’t know what’s on them. I only knew they existed and that they were absolutely not going to be reviewed by anyone on the team.”

James was silent for a moment, processing this.

“Someone reviewed them, otherwise it wouldn’t have turned up in the interview. You should have told me.”

“I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Well, that’s worked out well then, hasn’t it?” James said acidly.

“I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t think their existence would ever come up again. For what it’s worth, from what you say the counselor said, it doesn’t sound like Innocent passed on any details either.”

James went silent and when Robbie looked at him he could see that James bore the expression he most feared, the complete blank mask. Then it slipped and James spoke again.

“It didn’t go well. I said my childhood had no relevance to the present day. She said repressing memories was not healthy. Then I said that systemic reviews and meta-analyses of the data showed that working through trauma is frequently counter-productive and can end up exacerbating the effects instead of ameliorating them. I also may have mentioned that as a professional she ought to be aware that therapies with their roots in Freudian psychoanalysis are considered dubious at best these days.”

“Ouch,” said Robbie.

James nodded lugubriously.

“I also added that repression was an evolved coping mechanism and then she ended the interview before I had finished my point.”

“And I thought my session with the counselor went badly,” said Robbie wincing.

James huffed and then exhaled slowly, deflating slightly with his breath.

“I really tried, Robbie. I went in there determined to be cooperative and professional, and I was. Was until she mentioned my childhood, which has absolutely nothing to do with this and is nobody’s business but my own.”

The mask of blankness had disappeared again, so Robbie chanced a hand on James’s shoulder. Immediately James laid his head against Robbie’s.

“I’m sorry James. I should have told you. I would have if I’d known it was going to come up.”

“I’m sorry too. I’m angry at me, and I took it out on you.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree with you. Your childhood and Crevecoeur - whatever it is, and I’m not asking unless you ever want to tell me - your past there has never affected your work.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” James said. Then he added, “Wait, you threw me off the case we had at Crevecoeur.”

“Because you slept with an Accessory After The Fact.”

“In my defence, I didn’t know that at the time. Actually, she was sort of my wife.” James shook his head and scowled in disapproval at his own memories.

“Your wife? What?”

“We were married,” James looked at Robbie and his eyes suddenly had a glint of faint amusement.

“Married,” Robbie repeated disbelievingly.

“When we were eight. In the Rose Garden. We had witnesses and everything.”

Robbie rolled his eyes.

“I think I have concerns about your taste in women, Hathaway.”

“Me too, as it turns out,” James confessed. They sat in silence for a while and then James said, “Does this count as the worse before the better too?”

Robbie chuckled softly and pulled James until he leaned against him.

“It’s already better, love. Sometimes we’re going to row, couples do that. But my life is better with you in it.”

“Even if I’ve managed to end my career as a policeman?”

“You haven’t ended your career as a policeman. But yes, even then.”

James considered this for a moment or two.

“My life is better with you in it, too.”

“Shower and bed then?” said Lewis with a smile.

James nodded and added hopefully, “Can we have make-up sex too? I’ve always wanted to have that.”


	13. Chapter 13

Twenty-four hours later James received notification from HR that he had passed his evaluation. He sat stunned for a while before shaking his head in disbelief and then headed to the bedroom to get his shirts out for ironing.

“Told you,” was all Lewis said when he heard the news that evening, but he noted the pleased smile that had fixed itself to James’s face and didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

The smile stayed where it was on his return to the station the following morning, and remained while various faces welcomed him back during the morning. It only dropped when Innocent’s assistant popped her head around the door towards the end of the afternoon and told him that the Chief Superintendent was ready to see him in her office. James gave Robbie a helpless look and headed off like a man about to face his doom.

“Ah, Hathaway,” Innocent greeted him as he reached her door, “Come in, take a seat.”

James gingerly shut the door behind him and seated himself cautiously in the chair furthest away from her.

“Welcome back, I trust you’re feeling back on form now?”

“Yes Ma’am, thank you Ma’am,” James answered and then winced internally at how like a schoolboy he sounded.

“Just a couple of points,” she continued. “I see you passed your your psych evaluation.”

Hathaway twitched.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Hmm,” she said raising an eyebrow. “Good.”

James stared at the edge of her desk with laserlike intensity.

“Which brings us to the other thing we need to discuss.” She rose from her chair and came round to the the front of the desk and perched on it.

“Are you in a personal relationship with Detective Inspector Lewis?”

Hathaway had clearly not been expecting that question. His chin jerked up and he stared at her in alarm for a second. Then his face returned to its usual carefully composed state.

“Yes,” he replied as evenly as possible.

“And how long have you been in a relationship with your superior officer?”

Understanding passed over his features. 

“It’s really only just begun. A few weeks.”

Her tone gentled slightly.

“So you two were not working together when you - it, erm, started?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Right,” she said, her brow furrowing slightly as she thought about this. “Well, thank goodness for that. You are of course free to pursue a relationship with anyone, including a colleague, but you can’t be in one with your immediate superior.”

James assumed a stubborn look, one that she had only seen on very rare occasions; usually, now that she thought about it, if someone said something about Lewis that he did not agree with.

“You’re going to fill out your application for your OSPRE today, let’s put that fast-track status of yours back in action.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“In the meantime I’ll have a think about what I’m going to do with both of you. I might just do a straight swap of sergeants. Peterson could mentor you for the next bit.”

James looked up sharply at that, but then thought better of what he was about to say and responded with another “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Hathaway, there’s no need to look like you’re facing the gallows. You and Lewis have always been a very effective team, but we don’t get to rewrite the rules to suit ourselves. Life moves on, and so do we.”

His eyebrow arched involuntarily at that but he kept his mouth shut.

“Anything to add, Hathaway?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I mean, yes. How did you know Ma’am?”

“I didn’t know anything,” she said, “until you reported it to me as per best practise guidelines. But,” she added with a slight smile, “in all my years on the police force, I’ve never known an inspector to take his sergeant into his own home so he could look after him when he was ill. That in itself is unusual to say the least; it certainly isn’t something I ever did for any of my sergeants; but it was perhaps understandable under the circumstances. What tipped me off though, was that Lewis said you were much better weeks ago. Not well enough to return to active duty, but certainly well enough to go home and look after yourself; and yet you were clearly and inexplicably still at his place.”

James looked thoughtful and then looked slightly bashful.

“Right,” she said, “that’ll be all. I’ll let you know what’s been decided as soon as possible.”

He nodded quickly and rose to leave. As he reached the door she said, “James?”

“Ma’am?” he turned back to her.

“Are you happy?”

The smile that lit up his eyes said more than the soft “Yes” he replied with.

.

“Alright?” said Lewis when James returned to their office and lowered himself slowly into his chair.

James swiveled round in the seat and looked at him for a moment before he said, “She knows. About us I mean. She just came straight out and asked me how long.”

Lewis exhaled, “I see.”

“She’s splitting us up.” 

Robbie sighed and looked up at James and was surprised to see a slightly lopsided smile on his face instead of the morose expression he’d anticipated.

“It’s your fault you know,” said James.

“My fault? How’s it my fault?”

“You told her I was getting much better weeks ago, and failed to explain why I hadn’t returned to my flat.”

“What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”

James outright grinned at him.

“Apparently sergeants don’t live in their inspector’s flats when the aforementioned sergeants are perfectly capable of making their own hot water bottles for themselves in their own homes.”

Lewis considered this for a moment and conceded that it was a point.

“She also told me to stop looking like I was heading to the gallows and has threatened to team me with Peterson.”

Lewis growled slightly at that. James shut his mouth and his eyes widened slightly before he started to smile again, this time looking decidedly predatory.

“What?” said Robbie.

“Would you do that again? You know, later. At home.”

Robbie blinked and coloured slightly about the cheeks.

“So hot,” James whispered.

“Ah, hadaway wi ye!”

“You realise that going all Geordie on me doesn’t make it any less hot?” said James calmly.

Lewis put his pen down and pushed his chair back from his desk and said, “I’m beginning to see that us continuing to work together would be a little more difficult than I’d anticipated.” 

James hummed his agreement.

Robbie rose and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on.

“Well, come along, get your coat. No point in us hanging around here any longer today.”

“Sir,” said James sounding more than a little pleased with himself. He reached for his coat and joined Robbie at his side. He got an amused side-eye from Robbie for that.

“Maybe you could do that at home again, too,” said Lewis.

“Sir?”

“Exactly.”

James went slightly pink as well, and then flashed him one of those tiny smiles that Robbie coveted so much.

As they left the building Robbie remarked, “So. End of an era.”

“Yes,” said James with a sigh, “it was a good one.”

“The best,” said Robbie, “but the new one is going to be even better.”

They stepped out together into the evening air, shoulder to shoulder, matching their strides to each other instinctively.

“We could go out for dinner, if you’d like?” said Lewis.

James squinted into the setting sun and shook his head.

“Happy where I am.” Then he sent Robbie a smouldering look and added, “Sir.”


End file.
